the west will never forgive China for liberating themselves, it is a dangerous precedent that should be chastised at all costs.
Ah its nice to see lemmy grow. Now we can have fedderated senseless screaming matches just like the big social networks.
wow this one rustled some jimmies
For all the orientalists below:
If that’ supposed to be funny, I don’t get it.
The meme assumes the Western context. We don’t trust the US government because of the centuries of violence and exploitation. We had to go looking for that information because it is minimized and buried at every turn by the compliant national media.
On the other hand, the supposed abuses of the Chinese government are loudly broadcast at every turn. You’ll find if you go looking outside of Western sanctioned sources that all of those criticisms are absurd fabrications.
Therefore, someone in the western context who says they don’t trust the US or China is trusting the US media for information about China but not about the US itself. Does that help?
Yeah, I think it does. But I still don’t get it why the man in the third image is with nearly closed eyes. Is he answering the question by mimicing a Chinese face, meaning China told him not to trust what China says?
its a decade old meme template, the third slide is him getting mad for being contradicted.
I’m a little confused because the comic only has two panels? Additionally, in the second panel the character’s eyes are still round not any other shape - I don’t see squinting at all? (If you were trying to draw a head that small with eyes that were squinting, you would use angled lines, not circles)
In any case, I believe the interpretation of the comic intended by the creator is: “Panel one represents what Western liberals say about China. Panel 2 represents the media environment they swim in”
If you see only 2 parts of the image, that means your ISP sucks and it doesn’t load the entire image.
Description: Eye squinting happens when the eyelids are compressed together serving to constrict the eyes. It can sometimes occur in just a fraction of a second before disappearing.
In One Sentence: Narrowing the eyes is due to physical or emotional pain.
How To Use it: When you do not like what is being said or seen, simply narrow your eyes. This tells others that you do not like what you are seeing or hearing. You may perform this eye language in brief within just fractions of a seconds. While people may not consciously perceive the signal, it will likely still register subconsciously. If the person for whom the cue is intended, notices, they may revisit their proposal and add additional incentives to ease your negative judgment.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “What I’m seeing is causing me emotional or physical pain and to prevent all that negativity from coming into my body I’m going to squint and block to resist.”
Variant: See Anger Facial Expression, Hand To Eye Gesture.
Cue In Action: a) A person will wince when reading objectionable portions of a contract. b) She winced when the student missed the correct note on the piano. It caused her visceral pain.
Meaning and/or Motivation: An eye blocking form of body language designed to prohibit distasteful images or even thoughts from being received at full view. Narrowing eyes indicates contempt, distaste and anger. A person will not only squint from seeing objectionable sights, but also negative thoughts or sounds.
Wincing falls into the category of microexpressions since it can happen in only fractions of a second before disappearing, yet it remains full of meaning.
He’s saying anyone that claims to not trust the West nor China only distrusts China because they were propagandized by western news sources.
I don’t find that particularly compelling because I think assuming someone’s information diet and discarding it in order to invalidate their view is lazy. I’ll leave it at that so I don’t get put in timeout.
China bad. US bad. Russia bad.
All three can be true at the same time. (And they are)
France bad
Except for that one little village where people like Germanix lives.
Don’t forget, most of the countries in Europe bad also. Oh, and Japan very bad at times.
Maybe humans bad?
No, europeans bad.
If only there were other countries that said bad things about China lol
Bold of you to assume I am American, did you not check the instance I am from ?
Yes, there are many lies about China, but don’t get stuck in second opinion syndrome. China is both worse and better than you know.
The fact the government lies about China, while China is still bad behind the scenes, can both be true. During the cold war, both sides accused the other of being evil, and both were right.
Don’t let anyone who puts a “communist” sticker on their own forehead fool you into supporting them.
The fact the government lies about China, while China is still bad behind the scenes, can both be true.
This is just vague-posting unless you actually link some credible china-bad studies that aren’t sourced from British or US state media.
some credible china-bad studies that aren’t sourced from British or US state media.
University of Limpopo, South Africa, on China neocolonising Africa - https://www.jstor.org/stable/27159668. Is that credible enough for you?
If not, is there a source that you would call credible - and if it exists, what is it?
Note: I hope I don’t come as aggressive, I was trying to be succinct.
Many studies have been conducted on China-Africa relations, including those written by Fairchild (2020), King (2020) and Nyadera, Agwanda and Kisaka (2020). This article builds on the latter studies to confront the real myths and realities of China‘s Africa policy. Firstly, It is worth noting to highlight the significant contributions of Fairchild (2020)‘s research study that revisits how sub-Saharan African countries especially those of the continental coastal democracies with abundant mineral resources engage with China for equal mutual benefit particularly in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Okay, so of the 3 major contributions to this study, at least one, seemingly the most significant, states that Chinese diplomacy (particularly BRI) is mutually beneficial.
After a careful critical analysis of China‘s Africa engagement in the context of the three highlighted countries, FairChild (2020) argues that even though BRI has been presented historically as a debt trap diplomacy, a mere interpretation of BRI as neo-imperialist risks analysing China through the lens of European history that discounts the active role of African countries. Forthright, he says that it is unfair to choose a one-size-fits-all understanding of China‘s practices in Africa.
So Fairchilds (2020) study, argues that interpretation of BRI as neo-imperialist is a reactionary Eurocentric view which both applies European imperialist intentions to China and removes the agency of African countries. Also that you can’t take a “one size fits all” understanding of Chinas involvement.
It is not far-fetched that this argument is rendering FairChild (2020)‘s research to sound more like a study conducted from a Chinese perspective that did not compare China‘s involvement in the coastal democracies with the likes of In-land African countries of Zambia, Angola and Kenya. Therefore, leaving us with a gab as to how come this stance is not broadened and compared. Hence, this study aims to build on top of Fairchild‘s study whilst disagreeing on not choosing a one-size-fits-all definition.
So they accuse Fairchild (2020) of basically being a China simp for not researching and comparing inland African countries. They aim to disagree with the premise that you cannot apply a “one-size-fits-all” analysis to Chinas involvement.
There is also the Study conducted by King (2020), that discusses the human resource traditions of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and those endorsed by the BRI with particular attention to the Education Action Plan for the BRI published by the Chinese Ministry of Education in the year 2016. The research article‘s value contribution stems from explicitly comparing the FOCAC HRD pledges with the recent ones related to Education Plan under BRI. A review of the same context is done under FOCAC VI and FOCAC VII that compares the discourse of action plans of the different plans, goals, and pledges in the implementation in various African countries including in Ethiopia and Kenya. A clear generated scholarly view from the study highlights that King‘s study supports the two plans undertaken between both China and the African States by indicating that social welfare is important to the development and also quotes Xi in 2017 who highlighted that ―Improving people‘s livelihood and well-being is the primary goal of development‖ (2020: 233). And additionally, supports his argument by quoting (Frankopan, 2018: 242) who has described China-Africa relations as ―win-win‖ through the mutual benefits and using cooperations combined with incentives to weave countries, peoples, and cultures in a so-presumed win-win scenario.
So now we establish that King(2020) also takes the view that Chinese diplomacy efforts are mutually beneficial after analyzing human resource traditions and those proposed by the BRI, particularly the education aspect of the plan.
It also references another study Frankopan (2018:243) who also describes Chinas relation as Win-Win and mutually beneficial.
We should then understand that the current article seeks to differ completely with the above highlighted of presenting China and Africa relations as win-win and add several relevant empirical findings that render his article relevant but short-sighted and best limited and myopic particularly looking at how China is not engaging in a win-win in the countries under study.
So this study is specifically trying to argue against these previous significant contributions as being short sighted, particularly because China is not engaging in “Win-Win” under the countries they will research. Harkening back to their prior insistance that you can apply a “one-size-fits-all” analysis.
The study of Nyadera, Agwanda, and Kisaka (2020) engage the attractiveness of China’s Africa engagement has raised some of the controversial perspectives and views recently. Also, this is a tale that continues to be welcomed with mixed feelings, from disquiet to confusion. They all show that China‘s Africa engagement is driven by its demand for minerals and oil whilst it delivers Africa‘s infrastructural needs. In Non-Economic drivers of China‘s Africa engagement, they all pinpoint at personality traits of Xi. They quote Cabestan in 2012 who understand XI‘s personality traits as driven by his ―realistic, efficient, and relaxed Party Secretary, conscious of the need for China to move towards a market economy‖ (2020: 09) that is useful in analysing his approach to Africa. Prominent former and current African leaders are understood to be in good books with Xi including Robert Mugabe (Late and Former Zimbabwean President) who described XI as a ―true and dear friend‖ of Zimbabwe. His personality and leadership credentials and work have earned him his first honorary degree by the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in 2019. He is also understood to be having the choice of words, outspoken in nature that increased his interactions with African leaders. The second reason relates to the decline of Western countries‘ major investments in Africa in the post-second world war.
So basically, we establish that yet another study, Nyadera, Agwanda, and Kisaka (2020), frames this relationship as Win-Win “we get infrastructure they get resources”. Which is partially informed by Xi Jinpings own established personality as a “realistic, efficient, and relaxed Party Secretary, conscious of the need for China to move towards a market economy”. It also establishes that Xi is highly regarded among African leaders and institutions, and vice versa.
…
If you read the article you can know I’m not nitpicking positive aspects, I’m not jumping around, this is the start of the study.
To avoid making this comment as long as an actual breakdown of an entire academic article, having demonstrated my willingness to engage with the work, can you go ahead and state some of what you believe to be the more valid points against Chinese involvement/framing Chinese involvement as imperialist from the study.
Sorry is China cutting people hand because they didn’t pick up their quota of rubber for the day? Ah that’s right, it was Belgium.
Quit downplaying the horror of real colonisation.
downplaying
Where am I doing that?
Sorry is China cutting people hand
This is literally whataboutism.
Was Leopold bloody years of terror vastly worse? Yes. Who is arguing with that? Is China benevolent and non exploitative? The African studies done by locals tend to say no.
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I can’t read that as it’s paywalled. Anyway here’s a lot of links about this topic, several from African leaders and diplomats on the difference between Chinese trade and development in Africa and actual imperialism as practiced by western countries:
- Debunking the claim that “China is Imperialist”
- The demeanor of Chinese leaders (Xi Jinping) vs Western leaders (Nancy Pelosi) towards African nations. One of the reasons why African nations favor China instead of the West. Full video here
- An African leader on the hypocrisy of those saying China is imperialist.
- China africa panel: if you want actual infrastructure, you go to China, not the west.
- Is China really imperialist? What’s the difference between what Europe did to Africa, and what China is doing?
- Five imperialist myths about China’s role in Africa.
- Evo Morales - Why China and Russia aren’t imperialist, but the US is.
- US air force veteran Bill Brown breaks down the history of anti-chinese propaganda, and why China is not colonialist like the west.
- Yanis Varoufakis on China’s foreign policy dealings with Greece and Africa.
- Vijay Prashad and Qiao Collective - Is China imperializing Africa?
- Danny Haiphong from BlackAgenaReport interview with Anya Parampil from thegrayzone: on the new cold war, and a myriad of lies about China.
- The Belt and Road Initiative: the antithesis of Colonialism.
- The war on China : and geopolitical significance of the belt and road initiative.
- China has forgiven over $10B in debt, over half to Cuba, but also including > 20 African nations, Pakistan, and Cambodia.
- After covid, China suspends debt repayment for 77 countries, promises > $2B USD and medical supplies as aid to help developing countries fight covid.
- President Xi pledges coronavirus vaccine to Africa first, helps fund African CDC headquarters.
- The chinese debt trap is a myth.
- China writes off $6M in debt to rwanda, provides another $60M in grants.
- China forgives over $78M in Cameroon debt.
- China writes off $36m Mozambican debt.
- China writes off substantial amount of Angola debt.
- After a group of Guangdong landlords evicted a group of Africans, the CPC arrested them, apologized to the African Union, paid for hotels for the migrants, passed a series of anti-discrimination laws, and spent weeks going to all the restaurants, landlords, and taxis to warn them of the law.
- Nato’s new enemy: the CPC.
- The western media’s China hysteria.
It’s not paywalled. I think you didn’t even bother to click “read full article” or whatever the button name is. They might ask you to register witb a free account.
If you want to use other people opinions as an argument, I’m going to ask you for what you asked for - studies. Preferably published in journals, not essays by socials celebrities like Caitlin Johnstone, nor articles in Chinese newspapers, nor Reddit. And that’s because a deluge of weak sources is worthless - that’s how US propaganda works and enforces itself.
Extra points if the studies are not from China or it’s close Allies, just so that you have exactly the same requirements as the ones you asked for.
Can be paywalled.
Edit: I highly recommend you read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
Say what you want about China but they aren’t out there enslaving the population and raping women. At worth they’re doing what the FMI is doing with their debt trap. How dare you compare that shit with real life violence
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Holy mother of racism batman
I know the mod erased it, but could you hint at the inappropriate post’s content?
You can check their mod comment history
Something like a one-party political system with dear respected leader, concentration camps, surveillance, social rating system, GFW?
Note how I don’t say anything about propaganda from every crack. That’s because western propaganda has successfully evolved in the conditions of outright censorship not being allowed. Like killing cockroaches in a building again and again you make them evolve for the poisons used in the past.
If you are going to pick the “all this is not credible” line, then don’t bother. Also credible is a synonym for “believable”, and nobody can make you believe things you don’t want to believe.
The USA is a one party system in many ways so is the EU when it comes to imperialist and neoliberal policies every single party is on board doesn’t matter who you vote for.
Can you name a single piece of anti-China propaganda from the West that you don’t accept unquestioningly?
This is why people won’t support lemmy lmao.
You know there are other sources for China’s ills than American news media right?
A bunch of cracKKKers don’t support lemmy. Which is the minority in world population.
There isn’t a single piece of anti-China propaganda from the West that you don’t believe without question.
And those are?
Seriously, link these without sourcing Zenz or another US or British state media source.
bro gonna link an “el pais” article that just reposts whatever US media posts but in spanish.
Please person who only speaks English provide non-English source.
Maybe learn French
I know domestic media that parrots American news media. I’ve seen them rail against experts of my own country when suggesting otherwirse.
“Won’t support Lemmy” is a bit strong, but we should probably de-federate lemmy.ml
Why?
“The US is bad, but I believe everything it says about its enemies without question”
It doesn’t matter who said it. There isn’t a company or a government that is your “friend”. They’re all out to squeeze you
China has never done anything wrong to my country while the US has and continues to do so, how insane you have to be to group them together.
You should probably stop unquestionably believing everything the US says about its enemies then
What is it about my comment that makes you think i do? Fuck ALL corporations. Fuck ALL governments. Is that clear enough?
It’s clear that you equate an empire’s atrocities with their victim country’s self defense.
Saying “all governments are equally bad” while the US is bombing them outright or funding their destruction is tone-deaf.
China is, eh, self-defending in Xinjiang against Uyghurs? Or what’s your point?
Classic US foreign policy propaganda. It’s not Uyghurs, it’s specific fanatical jihadi separatists among Uyghurs who made a guest appearance among the other head choppers in Syria after the government fell and are openly looking for international support to do the same in China. You’re completely wrong if you think that all Uyghurs want to live under Sharia law in some Uyghurstan.
You’re basically an ISIS supporter.
The majority of the world, notably Islamic countries, who’ve been bombed by US and british planes for almost a century now, disagree with you. Only the countries aligned with the US empire are buying this line.
You can also just go to Xinjiang, and see for yourself, unlike the main person peddling this narrative, Adrian Zenz, an anti-semitic evangelical who works for the US government, and doesn’t speak a word of mandarin.
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#whats-going-on-with-the-uyghurs
The fact that you only do this “all lives matter!” style equivocation in one direction.
Fuck ALL corporations. Fuck ALL governments. Is that clear enough?
Oh? So can I get a “fuck the government of Ukraine”? How about “fuck the government of Taiwan.” How about “Fuck the republican party AND the Democratic party, neither of them are your friend, they’re both out to squeeze you”? (The last one being very different from what you were saying during the election, where, for some reason, your “everyone is bad, maaaan!” stance was nowhere to be seen…)
Do you just believe people can’t be anarchists…? Cause that guy just seems to be an anarchist.
To be an anarchist you actually have to consistently hold anarchist positions. Not being a liberal 99% of the time and only bringing out the facade of anarchism when you need to justify acting like a western chauvinist.
You can’t be an anarchist and a fanatical supporter of the democratic party at the same time
Exactly. That is what bothers me about most anti Americans here in Europe. The US absolutely did many terrible things, but that does not automatically mean that the Russians are the good ones. They did many terrible things too.
Where do all the ads come from? Usa. Thats why i’m a usa hater.
Historically, Western Europe has been just as bad as the US, especially France, Germany, and the UK. Russia hasn’t been as bad historically, especially not when they were Socialist, when they were inarguably one of the most progressive countries in the world.
I’m talking about the time post world war two. And if you are telling me that the soviet occupations and invasions weren’t horrific, I can’t help you
i find it more horrific that the US supported head chopping jihadists in afghanistan to prevent a soviet aligned democratic goverment there. and in every other interventions, the US found themselves on the reactionaries side, and still continue to do so to this day with the headchopping wahhabis in Syria for example.
The period where the Soviet Union supported Cuba, Palestine, Algeria, Vietnam, China, and countless other liberatory struggles? Where the Soviets sent the first human to space before the US? Where the hard effort in building up an industrialized society was beginning to pay off greatly despite the devastation suffered during World War II?
Yes, the Soviet Union was far more progressive than the US and Western Europe in that period, where the western countries were busy committing genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and more. I don’t need your “help” if your worldview fundamentally rests on excusing genocide and twisting a country that aided in the liberation of many countries as worse than that, somehow.
No one has ever said they were, it’s just a lazy strawman westerners use so they never have to justify always treating their countries as the good guys.
the wasp nest has really come out in the comments here 🤣
they come with pitchforks out whenever china is framed remotively positive, straight up reinforces the meme lol
hah! you aint’ kiddin, focused on real-life stuff for a bit and came back to a 40+ inbox 😁 😆
Usians don’t like being told that their stolen land nation started by slave owners who then held a “freedom revolution” so these oligarchs to have to pay taxes while tge rest of their population does, isn’t such a great place after all.
It is nice to see the western propaganda machine start to fail. I never thought I’d see the general public recognize Israel is a genocidal settler apartheid state until the last couple years, even though the propaganda machine has been working overtime for it. Hopefully other areas in propaganda start to crumble as well.
Born to early to explore the cosmos, too late to explore the world, but just in time to see the fall of the US empire propaganda machine 😁
Nah, we’ll be able to explore the cosmos my friend.
I am a Rational Free Thinker and that’s why I only consume privately funded US media that cites US intelligence
Noooo my heckin wholesome Lemmy propaganda don’t you dare have any other opinion than USA#1 here or else me and my liberal friends will call your love of gross, dirty and smelly foreigners and make homophobic jokes about you having sex with Putin
Dont forget the racist sinophobic “jokes”
ITT: people saying “the US and China both seem bad” and being told that they obviously just want to kiss America square on the lips because China has never done anything bad ever
Lazy strawman
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Entrance exam to get into the fediverse:
/s
When you have to resort to attack your opponent by using their post history you know that either you lost or you dont have any real argument.
Does feddit have screening questions on sign up to make sure people signing up are actual fascist?
Oh damn you’re still doing the bot thing?
“No U” says terf island
copium level: estonia
Whataboutism
well they have 61 posts within a month, all of them being controversial topics/political opinions. no matter ypur political affiliation. this IS straight up bot behavior
yet his comments sound pretty human, LLM? bot-human combination? maybe just a dude being paid? idk
Or… It could just be a dude. Sometimes it’s just that simple.
Nothing says “fragile worldview” quite like claiming everybody who disagrees with you is paid to do it
now, how do you know my world view? i never mentioned wether i agree or disagree, only that the shown behavior is what i would calssify as bot behavior
I don’t need to know your worldview because I recognize your defense mechanism. Nobody who accuses dissenting opinions of being bots ever has a well thought out worldview. You know as well as the rest of us, deep down, that you’re not identifying bots or paid users. You’re just incapable of creating a coherent argument against people with other politics, and this is your “out” to avoid coming to grips with it.
ohhhh are you sure you wanna say that? because based on tge “comrade” in your tag, and your description we seem to have exactly the same political opinions😬
You could agree with me completely and still be incapable of defending your worldview. I didn’t stutter, I said I don’t need to know your worldview and I meant it.
you are right, cause my worldview doesn’t matter. i see thibgs i attribute to bots, so i assume bot.
and what i wad referring to in my previous comment was you saying i couldn’t have a well thought out world view, which -assuming we have the same- would mean you don’t either. yet unlike you, i dont start defending everything that resembles my world view. i explained in previous comments why i thought it was a bot, yet you still assume that i just cant handle a diffrent opinion (which you have as flimsy of evidence as i have that they are a bot btw.)
Bot technology these days is crazy. Posting two whole posts a day?! No human is capable of that.
while a person is capable of that, tell me how many people post even once a day. most people never post, mor active users post like once a week. posting twice a day is either chronically online, or a bot. and judging by the fact that everything they post is controversial and political, a bot seems more likely
Nobody posts, this whole website is a psyop, you’re all actually six hundred mes in a trench coat and I’m actually a hallucinating LLM
Well you’ve posted more than that; so I guess we should ban you for being a bot.
mor active users post like once a week.
You just posted multiple times in this thread, what are you, grok??
i in fact didnt post at all today, i commented.
So people who comment a lot about politics aren’t bots, but people who post threads are? Break that down for me, Columbo.
Do you sincerely believe that there are government bots on this tiny, niche website?
nah, i wouldn’t be surprised if it is a troll tho.
A troll that literally just posts news stories?
Can you really not believe that some people just have different political opinions to you?
believing that might require some kind of examination of their own beliefs, and they know for sure those are held up by rickety vibes and baling wire
Two (non-white-supremacist) posts a day?!!? Total bot behavior.
/s
No, lol. Being more online is more likely. Lemmy is filled with politics.
but not every post twice a day
Most of the posts you see are from people that post a ton of times per day, 2 a day is fine.
completely ignoring thaf we are talking about political posts specifically
I would say they’re a bot,
not a bad guess probably. just a week or two ago was when I noticed them posting frequently very suddenly, and before that I haven’t seen their name anywhere.
I don’t disbelieve it but it doesn’t mean OP is wrong.
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Politics must be so easy when you just lazily strawman everyone who disagrees with you, before writing them off with an equally lazy adhominem.
I haven’t strawman’d them, they literally say China, Russia, Iran and DPRK are great and the West is bad continually. There’s no nuance to their position. At no point have I seen any post or comment from the OP that says “you know what, there’s some good and bad on both sides and maybe we should strive to find the balance in our perspectives” (though I will admit, I haven’t specifically gone through their post and comment history to seek it out).
It’s also not an ad hominem if I believe the person either doesn’t understand what they’re saying/doing or they’re intentionally saying/doing things because they’re themselves propagandised or being paid to say/do it.
I haven’t strawman’d them
Oh? Please point to where they said “Putin, Xi and Kim are the perfect humans and there’s nothing wrong in any of their countries and they’re perfect utopias.” Because that sounds like a huge fucking strawman.
It’s also not an ad hominem
Refusing to engage with the substance of their point and dismissing them as “either a moron, brainwashed or a paid actor.” is basically the definition of an adhominem.
Of course, someone has to post against the dominance that is western
propaganda“media”Your comment got like 10 downvote from 2 year old no content accounts. The redditors are here on the fediverse to correct the record.
The solution to that isn’t to post even more blatantly state controlled media just with a different flavor of boot sole.
Come on now.
Nearly all media is state controlled. Even privately owned media companies because both the media and the state are just tools the owning class uses to maintain power. They share the same interests. There are some coalitions of reporters and journalists that have relative independence but even they must cooperate with the interests of the owning class or risk being shut out of key resources necessary for their reporting and therefore their income. The goal is to read reporting from all sources with the interests of the producers of that source in mind. You can read RT and get reliable information on some subjects just as you can read the kyivindependant and get reliable information on some subjects. Emphasis on some. It is unfortunately up to the reader to filter through bias, a skill that is suspisciously not taught well in our education.
Nearly all media is state controlled. Even privately owned media companies because both the media and the state are just tools the owning class uses to maintain power.
More info on this:
I really gotta read Chomsky and Herman’s book on that subject
After reading On Chomsky I really can’t suggest reading him.
I actually preferred Inventing Reality from Parenti
Parenti my beloved. Will be adding that to my list thank you
I haven’t given it a try yet, I’ll have to give it a read.
I heard China sucks
Wasn’t the great leap forward by Mao the biggest mass murder in world history, according to historians not governments?
Doesn’t whitewashing that amount to Holocaust denial level cultural blindness?
I know nothing, quick Google search.
I know nothing, quick Google search.
lol we know, you don’t have to tell us.
Just have a look at Germany. They abolished the stasi and not even 25 years later they’re back to being nazis.
It’s necessary to neuter the white wingers from time to time
Yeah lots of people died but the cultural revolution and Great Leap Forward but it has been over for 50 years now, meanwhile how many millions of people have had their lives ruined by US sanctions or wars in the last 70 years? Imperial countries export their misery so that people like you and me can live nice comfortable lives. Meanwhile we point at other countries who were deliberately impoverished for our benefit. When leaders in those countries try to take back their wealth they’re assassinated, when trade unionists try to organise to give the workers better rights they’re tortured and then assassinated. At least the Great Leap Forward only negatively impacted Chinese people, meanwhile you get to sit smugly on your computer or phone and eat your chocolate bar that was built or farmed with the blood of poor labourers in Africa and when those poor people try to rise up to better their conditions our governments and their fascist lackeys will be there in minutes killing them for you so you can keep getting cheap treats.
Also do you really think there is no political repression in the west? I recently read the obituary of a guy who was in my local communist party who was denied work his whole life because he was an „unteachable communist“ being on the wrong side of the ruling classes ideology sucks no matter where you are.
In short, no, that was cold war propaganda. These intro articles get into some of the details of the Mao era:
- Monster or Liberator? by Carlos Martinez
- How did Mao manage to kill ~78 million people? by Godfree Roberts
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The Rise of the Chinese People’s Communes by Anna Louise Strong
I could find books that say the Nazis are great guys too. Doesn’t make it right.
This kind of post-truth nihilism is completely fruitless. If you dismiss evidence that contradicts your preconceived notions on the basis that evidence against other unrelated facts might also exist, then the only valid beliefs are the ones you already have. You’ve arrived at an epistemological position that rejects all new knowledge and positions all knowledge you already have as infallible.
Why not evaluate the claims and their evidence, instead of starting from the position that any defense of Mao is comparable to defending the Nazi Holocaust? Not to mention, if you did come across a group of Holocaust deniers, is this really the weak response you’d give them? Not even going to produce any evidence in support of your own claims?
Getting people to read even short articles is impossible.
Just be honest with yourself any say that you’re not looking to challenge your orientalist biases, that you just want things to confirm them.
The communists were the ones who defeated fascism in ww2, Mao being one of the most important leaders in that fight against japanese fascism. To equate Mao with nazis or the axis powers, who they shed so much blood to defeat, is sickening.
And you are impartial, saying someone you do not know has an “orientalist” bias. Throwing out pejorative words, linking to lengthy fringe arguments like a Trump supporter telling me to watch Hannity.
I see you’re defending your heroes by parsing words and cherry-picking books and news and rallying your arguments (and propaganda) to defend them. I expected nothing less from you; it’s exactly the same thing a Trump supporter would do.
Carry on, comrade. Enjoy yourself. You have the evangelistic fervor of a Baptist preacher.
I see you’re defending your heroes by parsing words and cherry-picking books and news and rallying your arguments (and propaganda) to defend them. I expected nothing less from you; it’s exactly the same thing a Trump supporter would do.
Meanwhile you do something a million times more honorable and simply refuse to confront new information, dismiss it all as propaganda, and say your opponent is equal to a Trump supporter (for what? for having principled stances that he backed up with multiple sources? How often do Trump supporters back up their claims with sources that aren’t PragerU videos or AI generated images?). You’re implying that Dessalines is being intellectually dishonest when he has done nothing incorrect in this conversation: he made a claim to counter your unsourced claim, cited his sources, and when you refused to learn anything at all he’s just calling you out for falling back on Western propaganda. Is any of that wrong?
The People’s Republic of China oversaw the largest increase of quality of life in human history, and the previously mentioned famine would be the last in a region where they have frequently occurred throughout history.
The PRC’s legacy is not one of causing famine, it is of ending it.
everyone knows that china was perfectly alright before the communists came, no one died of hunger and no one was addicted to opium, also no one died by the hands of the japanese nor it was occupied by other western powers.
Do you understand the difference between causing a famine unintentionally and doing mass murder?
“Oops! I killed 15 million people, but it was an accident. My bad. Who knew forcibly moving all the farmers to the city and making them work in factories would cause a famine?”
-Mao, probably
PS: 15 million is the low end number. 15-55 million is the commonly accepted number, with some estimates as high as 70 million.
At some point you’d think he’d look around and notice.
They did notice, and very quickly changed policy.
The Great Chinese Famine was an enormous tragedy but it very obviously wasn’t deliberate.
Also important to note, after a constant cycle of famine throughout its history, this was China’s last. The CPC worked hard to make sure something like it would never happen again.
Lol what’s your source on this, the black book? Also do you think Mao was like the king of China or?
So you think Mao decided starving his own people benefited him? Why?
I’m sorry, but why would that matter? We tend to judge people by their actions, not their intent, when it comes to mass deaths.
Right?
Right?
It matter for the same reason a tribunal need to know the motive of a crime to give it appropriate punishment. It’s not about the morality of the action, it’s about a logically sound and coherent picture of the event.
Peoples doing something bad for terribly bad reasons is coherent, peoples doing something bad for no reason at all isn’t. The fact that you don’t have any explanation as to why an entire government composed of thousand of peoples would do such a thing -like it or not- is a very big hole in your narrative, and rise some serious questions about it’s consistency and therefore about it’s likelihood (because an incoherent statement can never be true no matter what).
Insisting that the event happened the way you say it did without providing any rational or cause-effect relationship and becoming defensive when explicitly asked to provide one puts both your narrative and your argumentation in it’s favor in the same category as those of conspiracy theorists who insists that “they” lie to us and immediately gets mad when asked to explain why “they” would.
You’re talking about narrative, spin a story about tribunal, and then spin a story that I’m defensive. I’m not.
Insisting that the event happened the way you say it did without providing any rational or cause-effect relationship
Literally what the first commenter gave - there was a widespread famine in China, it’s caused by Mao agricultural policies.
What are you contesting here? There was no famine? Famine is the narrative? Or that it wasn’t caused by policies but by… What? Weather? Weather was good.
I don’t understand your point, please clarify it, in a way that isn’t just calling your interlocutors stupid or defensive.
I’m sorry, but why would that matter? We tend to judge people by their actions, not their intent, when it comes to mass deaths.
Right?
Right?
Maybe it’s my autism but dismissing a relevant question by implying that the person who asked it is immoral/unempathetic for even asking it seems pretty defensive to me, and is a non-argument regardless.
Literally what the first commenter gave - there was a widespread famine in China, it’s caused by Mao agricultural policies.
Now that one is on me, I could have worded that better. By cause-effect relationship in this context I meant the cause who’s effect was that the government chose to take whatever course of action you believe is responsible for the famine. Peoples take decisions for reasons, bad reasons sometimes, yes, but reasons nonetheless.
It’s not about agreeing with the reasons, it’s about coherency. That an entire government, a group formed of thousands of peoples, would act all in concert with no motive, especially for a project on such a large scale and which would take so many resources, is nonsense. If you can’t present either proof that they really took the conscious decision to manufacture a famine or a motive to explain why they would want to do that, the claim that the famine was intentional is extremely dubious at best.
Also, speaking of a government’s actions as if only the one person at the top was to blame is something peoples trying to speak about politics and history seriously should avoid.
What are you contesting here? There was no famine? Famine is the narrative? Or that it wasn’t caused by policies but by… What? Weather? Weather was good.
There was a famine. But it was not man made with the purpose of killing a large portion of the population, again, as the other commenter pointed out, why would they do such a thing? And why did they stop doing it? It makes no sense.
The famine was the produce of a great number of different factors, inefficient and backward agricultural methods, bad weather, compound effects of WW2 + the Chinese civil war, mismanagement, trade embargoes, etc… But others could explain it better than I can.
An other point we disagree on is the number of deaths from the famine. Numerous western academics intentionally inflate the death tolls of countries ruled by communist parties, most infamously “the black book of communism” and the “victims of communism foundation” who literally count Nazi invaders killed by the red army and peoples who could potentially have been born but weren’t as victims of communism.
I don’t understand your point, please clarify it, in a way that isn’t just calling your interlocutors stupid or defensive.
I called you defensive but I did not call you stupid, nor did I imply it.
