Okay, so background: I'm your average pro-gun fuck-the-police, fuck-trump zoomer honed by years of unsupervised internet access and I've just discovered this community and started lurking for a while. But I still hold extremely negative views on China, which I still think are justified.
"Which views?" I'll throw them out real quick: child labor! internet censorship! media censorship! anti-LGBTQ! uygher genocide? positive and pro war relations with russia! (because fuck putin)
So I get really confused anytime I see people expressing pro-China sentiments. Have I been spoonfed by the media or are some of these points actually justified?
More of that in america mate, illegal in China.
You need to view this in the context of protecting the revolution. Let's say that you have a revolution in whatever country you're in tomorrow, are you just going to let the internet be a free space to foster and create fascist dissidents? Are you going to let foreign (capitalist) countries run your social media for you? Or are you going to limit various things in order to ensure that only domestic companies run your internet-media so that you can police them appropriately if they try to weaponise those forms of media as tools to overthrow proletarian rule and install bourgeoise rule?
I assume you've actually read some marx here, but if not, I want to just quote a small segment of chapter 2 of the communist manifesto at you.
Pay special attention to what I've bolded here, the paragraph and bullet point 6. The point being that centralisation and control of all media is completely in-keeping with Marx's (and the other writers) views on the matter. Media is a tool of the bourgeoisie that costs a significant amount of money, it functions as a means of power exerted through wealth to control and influence outcomes in a state. Removing these from the bourgeoisie and centralising them in the hands of proletarian control is part of overthrowing the bourgeoisie.
The reason the bourgeoisie have propagandised you into disliking this is BECAUSE it massively harms and affects them. They wouldn't give a shit about it if it harmed the proles, they only give a shit because it affects them.
China practices a bottom-up system of power. Starting at the mass line via committees and polling. This does result in slower progress on social change than a top-down approach. With that said however, lgbt issues are progressing as younger generations age up, and this more or less guarantees progress as long as the system does not change as the overall population will exert its power over time. Boomers are the thing holding it back. It is also I think fair to point out that lgbt issues are not going great in the west, with a large push for reversal well underway.
Literally didn't happen. An oppressive crackdown and re-education program? Yes sure. Genocide? No. A simple thought experiment that you should do here is to ask yourself how Israel, a country that is much much smaller with more resources to spend per population doesn't manage to stop evidence of its crimes from occurring(see /r/israelexposed), yet what have you actually seen of China's so-called genocide? Nothing. No refugees. No video evidence (in a country where people all have cameras). Fuck all.
What did happen was that China cracked down on islamic extremism that was being fostered through cia connections across the border with afghanistan, which the US was occupying at the time. China combatted this by undertaking an absolutely massive re-education program to raise the quality of living, jobs and prospects of susceptible people in the region. It turns out that people with good jobs don't want to do suicide bombings.
This is obviously a topic that needs more than 2 paragraphs to dispel. Feel free to question and dig deeper. There are certainly images you'll have seen without hearing the evidence against them, and there will be stories you've seen peddled from a false pov. I'm happy to go into them, I also recommend this report: https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/xinjiang
Geopolitically speaking it is essential for China to ensure Russia doesn't collapse or fall into the Western sphere. If it did then the result would be 50 nato bases planted on the border and China would be utterly surrounded, isolated, and any future of it as an influential power seriously hampered. It would be fucked quite frankly.
Not sure where you got the idea that they're pro-war. They are brokering for peace. Have been the entire time.
EDIT:
OH wait I can't believe I forgot to quote Lenin on freedom of the press
Freedom of media just means freedom of the bourgeoisie to buy and own all means of influence in society. None of them will be proletarian unless strictly controlled to be so, all of them will be owned by some fucking billionaire or fund that answers to many millionaires.
also much like the us, china has a lot of regional difference on lgbt rights. the shanghai branch of the party for instance has been much more vocal in pushing for progress than a western viewer would every be aware of.
Yup, rural China maybe still have some conservative view, but in urban area, there are a lot of progress. Can't just blanket anti-lgbt entire country just because one or two province, or you have to call out the US too, they also pretty damn anti lgbt.
Adding to the point about censorship:
The reason the topic of "censorship" is seen as such a taboo in Western countries is because of the belief in the "free marketplace of ideas", a fundamental pillar of liberal democracy and liberalism in general. The idea that, if you just let everyone give their opinions and arguments, the free marketplace of ideas will ensure that only the best ideas prevail and society will improve as a result. From the liberal's point of view, bad ideas would be filtered out anyway so censorship is unnecessary and only serves to suppress free thought.
Of course, this is nonsense. The "free marketplace of ideas" only exists in a fantasy world where everyone is arguing in good faith and is expressing their differing ideas with the genuine intent of making life better for everyone. Right-wing rhetoric, however, consists exclusively of bad faith arguments and outright lies. They have no intentions of improving society, they want to enforce their imaginary hierarchies where they are at the top and you do as they say. Their ideas are worthless and harmful through and through, but they appeal to the selfish, fearful parts in many of us that kinda like the idea of naturally being more "deserving", simply "better" than others.
It's like if I offered you heroin and a nutrient bar and told you "You get to choose your future diet, but you have to try both to give each a fair chance." One is clearly better, but many would still choose the other after being exposed to it.
Right-wing ideas are harmful and worthless. They are not presented in good faith and should, in fact, be censored.
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