Post-Mao, the CCP has overseen the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. This doesn't exactly align with a picture of a brutal or vicious regime.
Cties are already starting to shift their Covid policies in response to the protests. The irony is that most Americans have a far more negative perception of the CCP than do actual Chinese. Kishore Mahbubani argues that most people in China rate the government as fairly competent, a fact which surprises many Americans. As Mahbubani notes, it's also far from given that a more democratic China would be friendlier to American interests. To the contrary, the CCP often has to tame some of the most nationalistic and anti-Western excesses among the general populace.
"Post-Mao, the CCP has overseen the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. This doesn't exactly align with a picture of a brutal or vicious regime."
This is a CCP propaganda talking point built on the same fallacy as Democrat claims that they reduced the deficit. The relative improvement has nothing to do with oppression.
"The irony is that most Americans have a far more negative perception of the CCP than do actual Chinese."
Another CCP propaganda point. Chinese are not allowed to express negativity toward their criminal rulers, and are raised under the most aggressive indoctrination in the world.
Yan Shen is likely a CCP propagandist, or at minimum a sympathizer.
Absolutely. Soft power campaigns are about creating a positive worldwide impression, and the CCP knows how to use Western "anti-racism" as a tool for their own propaganda. Having a Chinese person sell socialism with gentle and reasonable rhetoric is consistent with this strategy.
Also, this commenter isn't the first I've interacted with online. It's the word-for-word repetition of specific talking points that you can find in the Global Times that give them away.
Speaking of which, you should read the Global Times for a bit, like I did, so you understand the rhetorical tactics and talking points the CCP publishes. It's very enlightening to follow fascist propaganda if you want to understand the party's goals.
I'd recommend you read Kishore Mahbubani's book Has China Won to broaden your perspective. I've also seen data points elsewhere suggesting that most Chinese rate the CCP as highly competent. For some reason pointing this out drives Americans crazy. Just like how pointing out to woke elites in this country that most Black Americans actually support policing as opposed to de-policing seems to drive those elites crazy as well. As I've been saying, the woke always seem to believe that they know better than the people whose interests they supposedly have in mind. The fact of the matter is, the social contract between the Chinese people and their government is something for them to negotiate. It's not for us as Americans to dictate.
I'm not an expert on comparative politics, but I seem to recall that Somalia was considered to be a libertarian paragon back in the day. There was basically no effective central government and the country was essentially run by warlords. China had its own warlord period after the collapse of the Qing. The notion that social, economic, scientific and technological development is totally irrelevant and that only some idealized notion of freedom matters seems to me to be incredibly naive at best. But what would I know?
"I've also seen data points elsewhere suggesting that most Chinese rate the CCP as highly competent. For some reason pointing this out drives Americans crazy."
No, I'm not crazy, I'm just aware that fascist systems that don't allow freedom of speech or freedom of belief use their own oppression as "evidence" that people support them.
Because they're not allowed to not support them. They are not allowed to say they are against the government.
This fallacy is so obvious to free people, it shows you don't understand the mindset of people who are not slaves to their government.
Sorry but I don't know what else to say except that you should try broadening your perspective. It's basically become a religion to you that the Chinese people couldn't possibly view their own government as competent. I'd recommend spending some time visiting or living in China and getting to know the people and culture like commenter Raziel. The entire world doesn't think like we do!
Oh I didn't deny that - I said the government doesn't allow their citizens to express otherwise, and that the people who support the CCP don't have any perspective from the outside because they've lived under the most oppressive regime on the planet and aren't allowed any other perspective.
Which makes it really funny that you think I have a "religious" devotion to a lack of perspective. That's projection.
Also really funny that I had this exact conversation with an account on YouTube, and that propagandist also ended with "you should visit China"
So I'll tell you what I told them, I will never step foot in China or give them a penny while the CCP gangsters who poisoned the planet continue to live in power and luxury.
You realize that since the late 1970s millions of Chinese have travelled abroad and studied in other countries including America, right? The irony is that most Chinese have a much more informed and nuanced perspective of America than vice versa.
If you don't deny that most Chinese view the CCP as competent then I don't really see your point. Disregarding the general will of the people seems remarkably anti-democratic, but as I said woke elites in America generally tend to disregard the viewpoints of people whose interests they supposedly represent because they know better. This is why there's a huge disconnect between how the elites view policing and how the Black community actually views it for instance.
Why has China Derangement Syndrome made even the anti-woke so remarkably woke?
Post-Mao, yes. During Mao, tens of millions died. Yet, the same Party is still in control.
Regarding your argument about Chinese people's attitudes toward their government, this is difficult to reconcile with the anti-government rumblings that are always there, beneath the surface.
Every day, injustices occur, e.g. people getting kicked out of their homes to make way for industrial development projects, the Yellow River Dam, the pollution, the inability to sue or go on strike or otherwise set things right.
Now the universal credit system that literally locks people out of being able to travel, get medical care, make payments etc. is going to reap a cruel and unexpected consequence of a growing fringe of disenfranchised people with nothing left to lose. I believe the government will come to regret this absolutist approach to squashing dissent.
I will wager that you, Yan Shen, either do not spend much time in China, or you are an operative of the government, paid to counter Western criticisms online.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on Chinese history or politics, but as I've been pointing out multiple times in this thread, I found Kishore Mahbubani's recent book Has China Won to be quite interesting. He makes two points in particular that most Americans seem to be totally ignorant of in these kinds of online condemnations of the CCP.
First, he cites data showing that most Chinese people rate the CCP as highly competent. There seems to be much more antagonism directed towards the CCP by Americans than by Chinese. This disconnect really reminds of the progressive left in America and how its views on issues like crime are actually out of touch with the views of mainstream Black Americans. Woke elites always seem to believe they know better than the people whose interests they supposedly represent.
Second, Mahbubani points out that in many instances the CCP has acted as a moderating influence in terms of restraining the worst excesses of nationalism and anti-Westernism. The Chinese people today view China’s rise as a restoration of historical norms and describe the period of the 1840s to 1940s as the Century of Humiliation. It’s far from certain that a more democratic China would be friendlier to American interests.
There seems to be a viewpoint here that China’s rapid social, economic and scientific rise since the late 1970s is totally irrelevant. This seems to me to be an incredibly naïve view at best. No one in China is agitating to live in democratic India. Similar to the phenomenon of Trump Derangement Syndrome, China Derangement Syndrome seems to made even the supposedly anti-woke purveyors of woke pieties.
It's very possible that a democratic China would be more likely to invade and annex Taiwan for starters. Chinese control of TSMC would impose significant costs on America. There could also be more of an impetus to directly confront Western tariffs and export controls directed against China. Companies like Apple and Tesla would seem to be logical targets of Chinese retaliation.
The simple fact of the matter is that the CCP has tended to prioritize relative order and stability. In that respect, it's restrained some of the worst excesses of nationalism. Anti-Japanese and anti-Western protests are allowed to occur, but the authorities generally make sure those don't get too out of hand.
The idea that a democratic China would be friendlier to American interests seems naive at best. The Chinese people describe the period from the 1840s to 1940s as the Century of Humiliation. China's rise today is perceived to be a restoration of historical norms. The Chinese people haven't forgotten about the depredations of Japan and the West in past decades and it's far from clear what the implications of unleashing that latent nationalistic sentiment would be.
I was living in Taiwan shortly after Jimmy Carter screwed them royally (by dumping our alliance and switching allegiance to the PRC with zero security guarantees), and they were STILL very pro-American and pro-West. I think if anything they are even more pro-West today.
Their transition to democracy has made them a generally free country and they would certainly never wish ill on the U.S. or other democracies. On the contrary, they feel a solidarity and shared values with us.
The notion that if China became a democratic republic free of Communist rule, they would then enthusiastically call for forceable annexation of Taiwan is, to me, ridiculous. I believe the opposite would occur. The Taiwanese and the mainlanders would become like Germany and Austria, or the U.S. and Canada. Shared language and cultural heritage, shared values, intertwined economies.
The best thing for the world would be for China to democratize. Sadly, this seems as distant a pipedream as since 1912.
From what I can tell, the mainstream Chinese viewpoint is that Taiwan is an unalienable part of Chinese territory. It's possible that a change in the form of governance in China would make peaceful reunification more likely, but I believe you're wrong if you think that mainstream Chinese sentiment is in favor of Taiwan becoming independent.
Separate from the issue of Taiwan, it's really naive to think that a democratic China would necessarily be friendlier to the West.
A democratic China will by definition be friendlier to the West. Taiwan and Hong Kong are the proof. Sorry, we have to agree to disagree on this point.
Taiwan has now been separate from mainland China since 1895, prior to Communism, prior even to the Republic of China. Even during the Qing dynasty, it was a remote outpost of little relevance or interest.
What made it a bitter subject to the Communists and their PRC regime is that the Nationalists fled to Taiwan and built it up as a capitalistic alternative. The capitalism succeeded; Taiwan became a huge economic power and at one time not too long ago, Taiwan had a higher national output and foreign reserves than the PRC.
Then Taiwan added insult to injury by introducing real elections and the freedom to dissent. Both were a slap in the face of Communist totalitarianism and are simply intolerable. The rulers of the PRC don't even recognize the legitimacy of elections in Taiwan (though, they try mightily to influence them).
Now Taiwan businessmen have built plants and factories on the mainland and own a substantial portion of China's economy, including Foxconn which builds most of Apple's devices. For China to invade Taiwan would be ridiculous; they would be in effect attacking themselves.
The Communists love to talk big. They threaten, cajole, darkly hint, and even shoot a few drones off. But to actually commit to a military campaign to conquer the island... that would be World War Three, as you know.
You seem to forget that prior to our current trade war with China we were embroiled in a trade war with Japan during the 1970s to mid 1990s. A lot of the same claims that are now being levied against China, that it cheats and steals, were directed against the Japanese, a supposedly democratic people and nominally an ally of America. In the early 1990s, I recall that a couple of Congressmen made a spectacle out of smashing Hondas as a demonstration of the prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment in America around that time. The Japanese were widely perceived to be a threat to American well-being and were denigrated using the same crude terms that Americans use to bash China and Chinese people these days. The irony is that many people in Japan acutely perceive the parallels between American actions and rhetoric directed against China today and actions and rhetoric directed against the Japanese a couple decades prior.
The idea that a democratic China would be friendly to American interests is as I've stated naive at best. Economic and scientific competition would continue unabated. The only difference would be that the CCP would no longer be a moderating force of some of the worst excesses of nationalistic sentiment. Be careful what you wish for.
Sorry Terry, but Asian bashing is as American as baseball or apple pie. As the example of Japan demonstrates, it doesn't even have all that much to do with democracy or a belief in some idealized notion of freedom. Americans who criticize the CCP and claim that a democratic China would be friendly to the world obviously have historical amnesia, because only a few decades prior these same Americans viciously denounced the Japanese in mostly the same ways that they attack China today.
In my opinion a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment is due to China's rise and our anxiety that they might be outcompeting us. As long as China prospers economically and technologically, most Americans will despise China no matter if its form of governance is democratic or authoritarian. Japan is proof of that. Our erstwhile allies the democratic Japanese outcompeted us in the automobile and DRAM markets in the 1980s and we hated them for it.
I don't forget the hostility to Japan during that era, but remember, there were also a lot of Americans saying we should stop whining and try working harder to compete.
Japan used protectionism to foster domestic industries, which aroused American ire, but they also jumped on every technical innovation to give them an edge. For example, in the 1960s the Japanese steel companies adopted the oxygen converter process which greatly increased efficiency, leapfrogging the huge American companies US Steel and Bethlehem which were more complacent and slow to innovate.
By the late 60s, the U.S. had to demand Japan stop underselling American steel, and they in fact toned down their competitiveness and started investing and working with American steel rather than destroying it, for political reasons obviously.
The Japan-US relationship has been defined since 1945 as that of the conquered and conqueror. In the post-war era, the Japanese have generally acquiesced to American demands, sometimes greatly to their own detriment.
The China-US relationship is quite different; since the 1930s, the Chinese Communists have been seen as an adversary, and the U.S. had no diplomatic relations with the mainland until 1979. In the Korean War, when China suspected MacArthur was going to take the fight to Beijing, they sent in hundreds of thousands of poorly equipped soldiers, many of whom were slaughtered by the Americans. An estimated 500K Chinese died in that conflict, and they do not forgive the U.S. its role, despite the war having been started by the North. Then there was Vietnam.
All of that being said, the Chinese and Japanese immigrant communities in the U.S. have earned respect as "model minorities" and any hostility that you see today toward Asian immigrants and ethnic Asian Americans is from that other disgruntled minority. Americans today admire and respect Japan for its culture and technology, and admire the Chinese for their high academic achievements, civility, and great food.
Sorry but that's just a naive perspective. The quality of life for most Chinese people has improved significantly since the late 1970s. Almost no one in China wants to live in a supposedly democratic country like India.
The CCP might overtly crack down in many cases to maintain public order, but usually behind the scenes they respond to the needs of the people. As is being reported by others, many cities are already starting to shift their Covid policies in response to the protests.
I usually avoid trying to insult people gratuitously and as I’ve claimed I’m certainly no expert in China or Chinese history. The fact though that so many Americans are so wholly ignorant when it comes to China and voice the same repetitive platitudes about freedom while patting themselves on the back for being free-thinking really is a hilarious sight to behold.
China is covered with people raising blank white pages as a symbol of "you know what we are thinking even if we are not allowed to say it"
And you know damn well there will be consequences for those people.
That's what a lack of free thought means. And your snide mockery of Americans betrays your support for oppression and communist totalitarianism. I'm not lacking perspective for criticizing CCP abuses, I'm speaking for the Chinese people who are trying to say it, but are not allowed to.
In fact, as an American I consider it a moral duty to speaking out against oppressive regimes, especially when their own people want to do so and cannot.
That's why I've compared people like you to the woke elites who disregard actual Black American opinion on the police. You’re motivated by your own internal idealism and don’t seem to have a problem with disregarding any facts that don’t support your narrative.
There is certainly a lot of discontent with the draconian lockdown measures in China, but interestingly enough this brutal totalitarian regime is now altering Covid policies in many cities around the country. The CCP might overtly crack down in many cases to maintain stability, but usually behind the scenes it responds to the needs of its citizens.
China is covered with people raising blank white pages as a symbol of "you know what we are thinking even if we are not allowed to say it"
And you know damn well there will be consequences for those people.
That's what a lack of free thought means. And your snide mockery of Americans betrays your support for oppression and communist totalitarianism. I'm not lacking perspective for criticizing CCP abuses, I'm speaking for the Chinese people who are trying to say it, but are not allowed to.
In fact, as an American I consider it a moral duty to speaking out against oppressive regimes, especially when their own people want to do so and cannot.
Not really. Post-Mao the Chinese government has brought about the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. For a supposedly brutal and despotic regime, it seems to be surprisingly responsive to the needs of its own citizens.
The "greatest uplifting of its own citizens" does this "uplifting" have its roots in The Great Leap Forward or the Red Guards? By most humanitarian standards these movements were "surprisingly responsive."
Sorry but you have an incredibly naive perspective. The world isn't black and white. Your idealism is misguided. China's rapid social, economic and technological development over the past 4 decades is unmatched in history. It's not some trivial or irrelevant talking point.
The irony is that the people of China have a far more positive view of the CCP than you do. But of course, as we’ve seen with progressive elites in America, they always seem to know better than the actual people whose interests they supposedly have in mind.
Are those thoughts wrong? A lot of commenters here seem to be posting the same anti-China talking points over and over again. I could've characterized that as robotic as well, but I generally don't like to insult people gratuitously.
It would be nice if commenters here could engage more substantively on the issues apart from repetitively throwing out buzzwords like totalitarian, authoritarian, freedom, etc. As my comment on our prior trade war with Japan argues, anti-Asian sentiment doesn't even really have much to do with any of those supposed ideals. It ultimately boils down to competition. In that respect, most Americans aren't even being honest with themselves about why they despise China.
I support your idealism, but realistically, this is not a rebellion. In China, a rebellion will be when millions of people march against the regime in every city. Every single city. Only then change happen. China is a country where the 10% have always been sacrificed to retain control of the 90%. They will kill 100 million people if that's what it takes to hold onto power. This is a vicious regime.
The only way we can help is to stop enriching the PRC government. Just stop trade altogether, which deprives them of trillions of dollars they are using to bulk up their military and internal police networks.
Unfortunately, the current namby-pamby leadership of the U.S. and Europe have no such agenda. Trump seemed to be going in that direction but was taken down. It's going to take a sea change in the West to dis-empower the Communists.
Post-Mao, the CCP has overseen the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. This doesn't exactly align with a picture of a brutal or vicious regime.
Cties are already starting to shift their Covid policies in response to the protests. The irony is that most Americans have a far more negative perception of the CCP than do actual Chinese. Kishore Mahbubani argues that most people in China rate the government as fairly competent, a fact which surprises many Americans. As Mahbubani notes, it's also far from given that a more democratic China would be friendlier to American interests. To the contrary, the CCP often has to tame some of the most nationalistic and anti-Western excesses among the general populace.
"Post-Mao, the CCP has overseen the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. This doesn't exactly align with a picture of a brutal or vicious regime."
This is a CCP propaganda talking point built on the same fallacy as Democrat claims that they reduced the deficit. The relative improvement has nothing to do with oppression.
"The irony is that most Americans have a far more negative perception of the CCP than do actual Chinese."
Another CCP propaganda point. Chinese are not allowed to express negativity toward their criminal rulers, and are raised under the most aggressive indoctrination in the world.
Yan Shen is likely a CCP propagandist, or at minimum a sympathizer.
Anthony, with all respect, do you think a paid propagandist would use an obviously Chinese name? Whoever s/he is, it's food for thought.
Absolutely. Soft power campaigns are about creating a positive worldwide impression, and the CCP knows how to use Western "anti-racism" as a tool for their own propaganda. Having a Chinese person sell socialism with gentle and reasonable rhetoric is consistent with this strategy.
Also, this commenter isn't the first I've interacted with online. It's the word-for-word repetition of specific talking points that you can find in the Global Times that give them away.
Speaking of which, you should read the Global Times for a bit, like I did, so you understand the rhetorical tactics and talking points the CCP publishes. It's very enlightening to follow fascist propaganda if you want to understand the party's goals.
I'd recommend you read Kishore Mahbubani's book Has China Won to broaden your perspective. I've also seen data points elsewhere suggesting that most Chinese rate the CCP as highly competent. For some reason pointing this out drives Americans crazy. Just like how pointing out to woke elites in this country that most Black Americans actually support policing as opposed to de-policing seems to drive those elites crazy as well. As I've been saying, the woke always seem to believe that they know better than the people whose interests they supposedly have in mind. The fact of the matter is, the social contract between the Chinese people and their government is something for them to negotiate. It's not for us as Americans to dictate.
I'm not an expert on comparative politics, but I seem to recall that Somalia was considered to be a libertarian paragon back in the day. There was basically no effective central government and the country was essentially run by warlords. China had its own warlord period after the collapse of the Qing. The notion that social, economic, scientific and technological development is totally irrelevant and that only some idealized notion of freedom matters seems to me to be incredibly naive at best. But what would I know?
"I've also seen data points elsewhere suggesting that most Chinese rate the CCP as highly competent. For some reason pointing this out drives Americans crazy."
No, I'm not crazy, I'm just aware that fascist systems that don't allow freedom of speech or freedom of belief use their own oppression as "evidence" that people support them.
Because they're not allowed to not support them. They are not allowed to say they are against the government.
This fallacy is so obvious to free people, it shows you don't understand the mindset of people who are not slaves to their government.
Sorry but I don't know what else to say except that you should try broadening your perspective. It's basically become a religion to you that the Chinese people couldn't possibly view their own government as competent. I'd recommend spending some time visiting or living in China and getting to know the people and culture like commenter Raziel. The entire world doesn't think like we do!
Oh I didn't deny that - I said the government doesn't allow their citizens to express otherwise, and that the people who support the CCP don't have any perspective from the outside because they've lived under the most oppressive regime on the planet and aren't allowed any other perspective.
Which makes it really funny that you think I have a "religious" devotion to a lack of perspective. That's projection.
Also really funny that I had this exact conversation with an account on YouTube, and that propagandist also ended with "you should visit China"
So I'll tell you what I told them, I will never step foot in China or give them a penny while the CCP gangsters who poisoned the planet continue to live in power and luxury.
You realize that since the late 1970s millions of Chinese have travelled abroad and studied in other countries including America, right? The irony is that most Chinese have a much more informed and nuanced perspective of America than vice versa.
If you don't deny that most Chinese view the CCP as competent then I don't really see your point. Disregarding the general will of the people seems remarkably anti-democratic, but as I said woke elites in America generally tend to disregard the viewpoints of people whose interests they supposedly represent because they know better. This is why there's a huge disconnect between how the elites view policing and how the Black community actually views it for instance.
Why has China Derangement Syndrome made even the anti-woke so remarkably woke?
Post-Mao, yes. During Mao, tens of millions died. Yet, the same Party is still in control.
Regarding your argument about Chinese people's attitudes toward their government, this is difficult to reconcile with the anti-government rumblings that are always there, beneath the surface.
Every day, injustices occur, e.g. people getting kicked out of their homes to make way for industrial development projects, the Yellow River Dam, the pollution, the inability to sue or go on strike or otherwise set things right.
Now the universal credit system that literally locks people out of being able to travel, get medical care, make payments etc. is going to reap a cruel and unexpected consequence of a growing fringe of disenfranchised people with nothing left to lose. I believe the government will come to regret this absolutist approach to squashing dissent.
I will wager that you, Yan Shen, either do not spend much time in China, or you are an operative of the government, paid to counter Western criticisms online.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on Chinese history or politics, but as I've been pointing out multiple times in this thread, I found Kishore Mahbubani's recent book Has China Won to be quite interesting. He makes two points in particular that most Americans seem to be totally ignorant of in these kinds of online condemnations of the CCP.
First, he cites data showing that most Chinese people rate the CCP as highly competent. There seems to be much more antagonism directed towards the CCP by Americans than by Chinese. This disconnect really reminds of the progressive left in America and how its views on issues like crime are actually out of touch with the views of mainstream Black Americans. Woke elites always seem to believe they know better than the people whose interests they supposedly represent.
Second, Mahbubani points out that in many instances the CCP has acted as a moderating influence in terms of restraining the worst excesses of nationalism and anti-Westernism. The Chinese people today view China’s rise as a restoration of historical norms and describe the period of the 1840s to 1940s as the Century of Humiliation. It’s far from certain that a more democratic China would be friendlier to American interests.
There seems to be a viewpoint here that China’s rapid social, economic and scientific rise since the late 1970s is totally irrelevant. This seems to me to be an incredibly naïve view at best. No one in China is agitating to live in democratic India. Similar to the phenomenon of Trump Derangement Syndrome, China Derangement Syndrome seems to made even the supposedly anti-woke purveyors of woke pieties.
In what way do you think a more democratic China would be less friendly to the West?
It's very possible that a democratic China would be more likely to invade and annex Taiwan for starters. Chinese control of TSMC would impose significant costs on America. There could also be more of an impetus to directly confront Western tariffs and export controls directed against China. Companies like Apple and Tesla would seem to be logical targets of Chinese retaliation.
The simple fact of the matter is that the CCP has tended to prioritize relative order and stability. In that respect, it's restrained some of the worst excesses of nationalism. Anti-Japanese and anti-Western protests are allowed to occur, but the authorities generally make sure those don't get too out of hand.
The idea that a democratic China would be friendlier to American interests seems naive at best. The Chinese people describe the period from the 1840s to 1940s as the Century of Humiliation. China's rise today is perceived to be a restoration of historical norms. The Chinese people haven't forgotten about the depredations of Japan and the West in past decades and it's far from clear what the implications of unleashing that latent nationalistic sentiment would be.
I was living in Taiwan shortly after Jimmy Carter screwed them royally (by dumping our alliance and switching allegiance to the PRC with zero security guarantees), and they were STILL very pro-American and pro-West. I think if anything they are even more pro-West today.
Their transition to democracy has made them a generally free country and they would certainly never wish ill on the U.S. or other democracies. On the contrary, they feel a solidarity and shared values with us.
The notion that if China became a democratic republic free of Communist rule, they would then enthusiastically call for forceable annexation of Taiwan is, to me, ridiculous. I believe the opposite would occur. The Taiwanese and the mainlanders would become like Germany and Austria, or the U.S. and Canada. Shared language and cultural heritage, shared values, intertwined economies.
The best thing for the world would be for China to democratize. Sadly, this seems as distant a pipedream as since 1912.
From what I can tell, the mainstream Chinese viewpoint is that Taiwan is an unalienable part of Chinese territory. It's possible that a change in the form of governance in China would make peaceful reunification more likely, but I believe you're wrong if you think that mainstream Chinese sentiment is in favor of Taiwan becoming independent.
Separate from the issue of Taiwan, it's really naive to think that a democratic China would necessarily be friendlier to the West.
A democratic China will by definition be friendlier to the West. Taiwan and Hong Kong are the proof. Sorry, we have to agree to disagree on this point.
Taiwan has now been separate from mainland China since 1895, prior to Communism, prior even to the Republic of China. Even during the Qing dynasty, it was a remote outpost of little relevance or interest.
What made it a bitter subject to the Communists and their PRC regime is that the Nationalists fled to Taiwan and built it up as a capitalistic alternative. The capitalism succeeded; Taiwan became a huge economic power and at one time not too long ago, Taiwan had a higher national output and foreign reserves than the PRC.
Then Taiwan added insult to injury by introducing real elections and the freedom to dissent. Both were a slap in the face of Communist totalitarianism and are simply intolerable. The rulers of the PRC don't even recognize the legitimacy of elections in Taiwan (though, they try mightily to influence them).
Now Taiwan businessmen have built plants and factories on the mainland and own a substantial portion of China's economy, including Foxconn which builds most of Apple's devices. For China to invade Taiwan would be ridiculous; they would be in effect attacking themselves.
The Communists love to talk big. They threaten, cajole, darkly hint, and even shoot a few drones off. But to actually commit to a military campaign to conquer the island... that would be World War Three, as you know.
You seem to forget that prior to our current trade war with China we were embroiled in a trade war with Japan during the 1970s to mid 1990s. A lot of the same claims that are now being levied against China, that it cheats and steals, were directed against the Japanese, a supposedly democratic people and nominally an ally of America. In the early 1990s, I recall that a couple of Congressmen made a spectacle out of smashing Hondas as a demonstration of the prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment in America around that time. The Japanese were widely perceived to be a threat to American well-being and were denigrated using the same crude terms that Americans use to bash China and Chinese people these days. The irony is that many people in Japan acutely perceive the parallels between American actions and rhetoric directed against China today and actions and rhetoric directed against the Japanese a couple decades prior.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/03/08/hammering-americas-image/bdd81faa-7f68-407e-afb9-dbc96baa718a/
The idea that a democratic China would be friendly to American interests is as I've stated naive at best. Economic and scientific competition would continue unabated. The only difference would be that the CCP would no longer be a moderating force of some of the worst excesses of nationalistic sentiment. Be careful what you wish for.
Sorry Terry, but Asian bashing is as American as baseball or apple pie. As the example of Japan demonstrates, it doesn't even have all that much to do with democracy or a belief in some idealized notion of freedom. Americans who criticize the CCP and claim that a democratic China would be friendly to the world obviously have historical amnesia, because only a few decades prior these same Americans viciously denounced the Japanese in mostly the same ways that they attack China today.
In my opinion a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment is due to China's rise and our anxiety that they might be outcompeting us. As long as China prospers economically and technologically, most Americans will despise China no matter if its form of governance is democratic or authoritarian. Japan is proof of that. Our erstwhile allies the democratic Japanese outcompeted us in the automobile and DRAM markets in the 1980s and we hated them for it.
I don't forget the hostility to Japan during that era, but remember, there were also a lot of Americans saying we should stop whining and try working harder to compete.
Japan used protectionism to foster domestic industries, which aroused American ire, but they also jumped on every technical innovation to give them an edge. For example, in the 1960s the Japanese steel companies adopted the oxygen converter process which greatly increased efficiency, leapfrogging the huge American companies US Steel and Bethlehem which were more complacent and slow to innovate.
By the late 60s, the U.S. had to demand Japan stop underselling American steel, and they in fact toned down their competitiveness and started investing and working with American steel rather than destroying it, for political reasons obviously.
The Japan-US relationship has been defined since 1945 as that of the conquered and conqueror. In the post-war era, the Japanese have generally acquiesced to American demands, sometimes greatly to their own detriment.
The China-US relationship is quite different; since the 1930s, the Chinese Communists have been seen as an adversary, and the U.S. had no diplomatic relations with the mainland until 1979. In the Korean War, when China suspected MacArthur was going to take the fight to Beijing, they sent in hundreds of thousands of poorly equipped soldiers, many of whom were slaughtered by the Americans. An estimated 500K Chinese died in that conflict, and they do not forgive the U.S. its role, despite the war having been started by the North. Then there was Vietnam.
All of that being said, the Chinese and Japanese immigrant communities in the U.S. have earned respect as "model minorities" and any hostility that you see today toward Asian immigrants and ethnic Asian Americans is from that other disgruntled minority. Americans today admire and respect Japan for its culture and technology, and admire the Chinese for their high academic achievements, civility, and great food.
Sorry but that's just a naive perspective. The quality of life for most Chinese people has improved significantly since the late 1970s. Almost no one in China wants to live in a supposedly democratic country like India.
The CCP might overtly crack down in many cases to maintain public order, but usually behind the scenes they respond to the needs of the people. As is being reported by others, many cities are already starting to shift their Covid policies in response to the protests.
How many times did you repeat that CCP propaganda line in this thread? Three at least that I've seen.
That's the big giveaway, when you have to use the same weak talking point over and over, it tells us you have a script to follow.
Hint, Mr. Shen. For free, independent, critically-thinking people, government propaganda is really easy to spot.
I usually avoid trying to insult people gratuitously and as I’ve claimed I’m certainly no expert in China or Chinese history. The fact though that so many Americans are so wholly ignorant when it comes to China and voice the same repetitive platitudes about freedom while patting themselves on the back for being free-thinking really is a hilarious sight to behold.
China is covered with people raising blank white pages as a symbol of "you know what we are thinking even if we are not allowed to say it"
And you know damn well there will be consequences for those people.
That's what a lack of free thought means. And your snide mockery of Americans betrays your support for oppression and communist totalitarianism. I'm not lacking perspective for criticizing CCP abuses, I'm speaking for the Chinese people who are trying to say it, but are not allowed to.
In fact, as an American I consider it a moral duty to speaking out against oppressive regimes, especially when their own people want to do so and cannot.
That's why I've compared people like you to the woke elites who disregard actual Black American opinion on the police. You’re motivated by your own internal idealism and don’t seem to have a problem with disregarding any facts that don’t support your narrative.
There is certainly a lot of discontent with the draconian lockdown measures in China, but interestingly enough this brutal totalitarian regime is now altering Covid policies in many cities around the country. The CCP might overtly crack down in many cases to maintain stability, but usually behind the scenes it responds to the needs of its citizens.
China is covered with people raising blank white pages as a symbol of "you know what we are thinking even if we are not allowed to say it"
And you know damn well there will be consequences for those people.
That's what a lack of free thought means. And your snide mockery of Americans betrays your support for oppression and communist totalitarianism. I'm not lacking perspective for criticizing CCP abuses, I'm speaking for the Chinese people who are trying to say it, but are not allowed to.
In fact, as an American I consider it a moral duty to speaking out against oppressive regimes, especially when their own people want to do so and cannot.
Not really. Post-Mao the Chinese government has brought about the greatest uplifting of its own citizens out of poverty in human history. For a supposedly brutal and despotic regime, it seems to be surprisingly responsive to the needs of its own citizens.
The "greatest uplifting of its own citizens" does this "uplifting" have its roots in The Great Leap Forward or the Red Guards? By most humanitarian standards these movements were "surprisingly responsive."
Sorry but you have an incredibly naive perspective. The world isn't black and white. Your idealism is misguided. China's rapid social, economic and technological development over the past 4 decades is unmatched in history. It's not some trivial or irrelevant talking point.
The irony is that the people of China have a far more positive view of the CCP than you do. But of course, as we’ve seen with progressive elites in America, they always seem to know better than the actual people whose interests they supposedly have in mind.
You actually sound like a robot. You keep typing the same thoughts phrased exactly the same way. It's weird, and it's very noticeable.
Are those thoughts wrong? A lot of commenters here seem to be posting the same anti-China talking points over and over again. I could've characterized that as robotic as well, but I generally don't like to insult people gratuitously.
It would be nice if commenters here could engage more substantively on the issues apart from repetitively throwing out buzzwords like totalitarian, authoritarian, freedom, etc. As my comment on our prior trade war with Japan argues, anti-Asian sentiment doesn't even really have much to do with any of those supposed ideals. It ultimately boils down to competition. In that respect, most Americans aren't even being honest with themselves about why they despise China.
https://www.commonsense.news/p/its-the-first-time-ive-seen-this/comment/10843699
Isn't there something referred to as Godwin's Law?
I support your idealism, but realistically, this is not a rebellion. In China, a rebellion will be when millions of people march against the regime in every city. Every single city. Only then change happen. China is a country where the 10% have always been sacrificed to retain control of the 90%. They will kill 100 million people if that's what it takes to hold onto power. This is a vicious regime.
The only way we can help is to stop enriching the PRC government. Just stop trade altogether, which deprives them of trillions of dollars they are using to bulk up their military and internal police networks.
Unfortunately, the current namby-pamby leadership of the U.S. and Europe have no such agenda. Trump seemed to be going in that direction but was taken down. It's going to take a sea change in the West to dis-empower the Communists.
the only thing American athletes bend the knee to is anti-American statements. They would never dare offend their Chinese patrons.