How does the World view China these days?

  On 9/3/2021 at 8:28 AM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

If Xi Jinping thought is what is being used in China, it's good that it's a "mandatory subject".  It would be great if "global imperialist totalitarianism" was a subject in the US or "imperial military client state" was a subject in other places, but this type of self reflection and self explanation is not present

Reimagine China domestically in service of the party, interesting, considering the party consists of millions of Chinese people

“China good, US bad”

”party is all, party loves you”

  On 9/3/2021 at 1:38 PM, chenGOD said:

“China good, US bad”

”party is all, party loves you”

China is clearly better than the US lol, where is the decades long history of mass murder and genocide done by China like by the US?

  On 9/3/2021 at 7:48 PM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

China is clearly better than the US lol, where is the decades long history of mass murder and genocide done by China like by the US?

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

  On 9/3/2021 at 8:15 PM, chenGOD said:

 

Exhibit 4

 

some hardcore stuff in that list. this one in particular caught my eye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre

hannibal lecter seal of approval right there -

  Quote

In 1968, 38 people in Wuxuan County were eaten, and 113 officials of the county participated in eating human flesh, hearts and livers. Chen Guorong (陈国荣), a peasant from Guigang County who happened to pass by Wuxuan, was caught and killed by local militia because he was fat; his heart and liver were taken out while his flesh was distributed to 20 people. A female militia leader ate 6 human livers in total, and cut the genitals of 5 men and soaked them in alcohol which she would drink later, claiming that these organs were beneficial to her health. The behavior of eating human flesh, hearts and livers occurred in many counties of Guangxi including Wuxuan, Wuming, Shangsi, Guigang, Qinzhou, Guiping, and Lingyun ... After the revolutionary committee was established in Shangsi County, a "killing conference" was held at Pingshan Square (平山广场) on September 1, 1968, during which more than 10 officials and civilians were beaten to death. After the conference, a committee member, Li Hao (黎郝), removed the hearts and livers from the corpses, sauteing them and preparing them as dishes for other representatives who attended the conference.

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  On 9/3/2021 at 10:17 PM, zero said:

some hardcore stuff in that list. this one in particular caught my eye - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre

hannibal lecter seal of approval right there -

 

From that Wikipedia article, a quote by someone who lived through the Cultural Revolution:

  Quote

 "I am pessimistic about humanity and pessimistic about humans. Because we have been through the Cultural Revolution, we have become very alert. I am very alert, alert like a peacock. Be careful, because humans are the most horrible animals, 

If you consider the horrors everyone in mainland China who is older than 40 has gone through a lot more about the country makes sense. From the absolutely vicious behavior when queuing by way of the completely obscene obsession with material goods to the stupendously dark world view that shrugs off internment and worse of millions of Uighurs and Tibetans: it all makes much more sense if you remember this  society has had just about the worst imaginable atrocities possible inflicted upon it within living memory and that with hardly any of the perpetrators being held to account for it.

  On 9/3/2021 at 10:35 PM, rhmilo said:

 

  Quote

 "I am pessimistic about humanity and pessimistic about humans. Because we have been through the Cultural Revolution, we have become very alert. I am very alert, alert like a peacock. Be careful, because humans are the most horrible animals, 

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  On 9/3/2021 at 10:38 PM, Squee said:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58394906

lol

i'm sure there are already Chinese Chad vs virgin American girlyboy memes

  On 9/3/2021 at 10:35 PM, rhmilo said:

  Quote

 "I am pessimistic about humanity and pessimistic about humans. Because we have been through the Cultural Revolution, we have become very alert. I am very alert, alert like a peacock. Be careful, because humans are the most horrible animals

  On 9/4/2021 at 12:36 AM, auxien said:

 

 

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While we should be cautious about survivor or defector narratives, we can’t always dismiss them out of hand. Not knowing anything about this particular quote or survivor, it’s hard to say, but humans are the most horrible animals. 

  On 9/3/2021 at 8:15 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 9/3/2021 at 7:48 PM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

China is clearly better than the US lol, where is the decades long history of mass murder and genocide done by China like by the US?

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 4

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waiting for the bullshit cummunist spin on this.

  On 9/4/2021 at 6:52 AM, usagi said:

waiting for the bullshit cummunist spin on this.

Radical cumunism is obviously the end state. 

  On 9/4/2021 at 6:28 AM, chenGOD said:

While we should be cautious about survivor or defector narratives, we can’t always dismiss them out of hand.

The horrors of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward before it are *very* well attested. Hundreds of thousands of eyewitness accounts exist and they’re even studied (and acknowledged) by official Chinese historians.

  On 9/4/2021 at 9:03 AM, rhmilo said:

The horrors of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward before it are *very* well attested. Hundreds of thousands of eyewitness accounts exist and they’re even studied (and acknowledged) by official Chinese historians.

that's what I said...

  On 9/4/2021 at 10:08 AM, chenGOD said:

that's what I said...

Must be me, then. I read it as much more hesitant than the evidence warrants, sorry.

  On 9/4/2021 at 3:09 PM, rhmilo said:

Must be me, then. I read it as much more hesitant than the evidence warrants, sorry.

Nah, re-reading my statement I was being pretty obtuse. No apologies necessary, eh.

  On 9/3/2021 at 7:48 PM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

China is clearly better than the US lol, where is the decades long history of mass murder and genocide done by China like by the US?

China is a brutal dictatorship. I think thats difficult to deny that. USA can be a shitty murderous state as well, but it doesnt change this fact.

Man, i just wished my chinese brothers and sisters could enjoy basic human rights man, you know? basic things. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press. Fair trial, no torture. Right to protest. Right for democracy.

It's just a shame paranoid idealogy-drunk political leaders and parties still will ruin countless lives in the name of their dogmas...

  On 9/3/2021 at 7:48 PM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

China is clearly better than the US lol, where is the decades long history of mass murder and genocide done by China like by the US?

give them time. but yeah..  USA's 400 years of slavery is hard to top. not to mention all the global 'outreach'. china's hands aren't clean though.. i doubt many if any country has clean hands. 

  On 9/3/2021 at 10:35 PM, rhmilo said:

From that Wikipedia article, a quote by someone who lived through the Cultural Revolution:

If you consider the horrors everyone in mainland China who is older than 40 has gone through a lot more about the country makes sense. From the absolutely vicious behavior when queuing by way of the completely obscene obsession with material goods to the stupendously dark world view that shrugs off internment and worse of millions of Uighurs and Tibetans: it all makes much more sense if you remember this  society has had just about the worst imaginable atrocities possible inflicted upon it within living memory and that with hardly any of the perpetrators being held to account for it.

 

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Don’t forget the US nuked Japan twice, that’s pretty horrific. 

  On 9/5/2021 at 4:19 AM, ignatius said:

USA's 400 years of slavery is hard to top.

Good point. And as usual, what makes China worse isn’t so much the horrors themselves but the scale at which they happen. In China everything is always larger and involves an order of magnitude more people.

  On 9/5/2021 at 8:31 AM, Rubin Farr said:

Don’t forget the US nuked Japan twice, that’s pretty horrific. 

Yup. Extremely callous. I was surprised to learn, however, that that was nowhere near the worst thing the US did to Japan:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

Japan had been so thoroughly brutalized by august 1945 the nukes aren’t mentioned at all in the meeting notes of the Japanese cabinet for when they were discussing whether to surrender or not.

I forget his name but the general who ran the air campaign against Japan said (paraphrasing) “either we win this war or we’re all war criminals for doing this” when discussing the fire bombings of Japanese cities which were all made of wood. I forget the numbers but something like 80,000 civilians were killed each time we dropped incendiary bombs on a Japanese city.

There were atrocities on all sides. There’s pictures of Japanese soldiers with babies on bayonets. The rape of Nanking. And on and on it went. WW2 is often referred to as the good war and it’s just fucking stupid.

About 3:30 into it he gets into something relevant here

yet the Japanese are not afflicted with the kind of callous disregard for life that Chinese living under CCP rule are (speaking in general terms), in spite of being subjected to atrocities as well in recent history. solely attributing the social/ethical disposition of Chinese mainlanders to the horrors they've experienced in recent times would be a mistake. I'm sure it's got partly to do with it (brutality can certainly create inhumanity in its victims), but it also has a lot to do with the system of beliefs that's been forced upon them.

  On 9/5/2021 at 10:31 AM, ignatius said:

I forget his name but the general who ran the air campaign against Japan said (paraphrasing) “either we win this war or we’re all war criminals for doing this” when discussing the fire bombings of Japanese cities which were all made of wood. I forget the numbers but something like 80,000 civilians were killed each time we dropped incendiary bombs on a Japanese city.

There were atrocities on all sides. There’s pictures of Japanese soldiers with babies on bayonets. The rape of Nanking. And on and on it went. WW2 is often referred to as the good war and it’s just fucking stupid.

About 3:30 into it he gets into something relevant here
 

 

 

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yes, Men Behind the Sun. WWII Japanese committed medical and experimental atrocities, and rape on Chinese citizens that China still holds as a wound that will never heal.

  On 9/5/2021 at 10:34 AM, usagi said:

solely attributing the social/ethical disposition of Chinese mainlanders to the horrors they've experienced in recent times would be a mistake. I'm sure it's got partly to do with it (brutality can certainly create inhumanity in its victims), but it also has a lot to do with the system of beliefs that's been forced upon them.

Show me the passage in Marx where it says the countryside should be starved to death or the bit where Lenin claims it’s a good idea to have high school students beat their teachers to a pulp.

Stalin, of course, did starve out the Ukraine, so there is that, but by and large China is in its own league when it comes to murderous politics, especially murderous politics *within living memory*.

Ideology is nothing more than window dressing. What actually matters are facts on the ground.

ideology determines the system of governance, which determines social settings and thus shapes people's lives "on the ground". I don't get why you would break that very well-understood chain of causality, other than to win some silly internet argument. the fact that Marx and Lenin's shit was perverted from its original intentions doesn't change that, it's an additional fact that merits its own discussion.

ideology is not just some purely abstract irrelevant thing with no practical consequences. I'm amazed anyone would argue this as we approach the 20 yr anniversary of a certain event that we're constantly reminded of, which was both ideologically-driven in nature and sparked a number of ongoing ideologically-driven conflicts with very practical consequences on a huge number of people's lives.

  On 9/5/2021 at 12:45 PM, usagi said:

ideology determines the system of governance, which determines social settings and thus shapes people's lives "on the ground". I don't get why you would break that very well-understood chain of causality, other than to win some silly internet argument. the fact that Marx and Lenin's shit was perverted from its original intentions doesn't change that, it's an additional fact that merits its own discussion.

ideology is not just some purely abstract irrelevant thing with no practical consequences. I'm amazed anyone would argue this as we approach the 20 yr anniversary of a certain event that we're constantly reminded of, which was both ideologically-driven in nature and sparked a number of ongoing ideologically-driven conflicts with very practical consequences on a huge number of people's lives.

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It’s always about power first and foremost. Governments that put ideology first never last long. See the Paris Commune and the anarchists in Spain.

ideology in the modern world mostly seems like a cloak that leaders have adorned themselves with to justify their policies. not to say that places aren't firmly capitalist or totalitarian or whatever.. but ideology seems really unrestrained.. sort of like how american evangelicals keep moving the goal posts to whatever suits them at any moment. 

the systems are old though and seems like a lot of them have outgrown or developed evolved/devolved beyond their foundations. plenty of core principals still exist but what does all that mean today? i'm probably lost on it all really.. just thinking out loud.