• Flyberius [comrade/them]
    hexbear
    110
    10 months ago

    I don't think a world order built by China would be better than the shitty one we got from the US

    I do to be honest.

    • somename [she/her]
      hexbear
      74
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      They’re at least building green energy and trains lol. And less wars. Already better.

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]
        hexbear
        75
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I'm going there in February for a few months, that's a start. Looking forward to it.

          • Flyberius [comrade/them]
            hexbear
            34
            10 months ago

            Sure, I will be all over the place. Once I know my plans a bit solidly I will let you know.

        • @AttackPanda@programming.dev
          hexbear
          6
          10 months ago

          I’m in Shanghai a few times a year on business and really have to double check that I have multiple VPN options available before leaving. Had a coworker have his phone checked at customs but we always bring dedicated “China-only” cell phones and laptops. They seem to be getting more on top of crushing outside communications but I always get at least one connection working when there. Last time it was an ssh tunnel to an AWS instance that I used to route traffic. Before that it was ExpressVPN which gave me trouble on the last visit. China is playing whack a mile with the VPNs.

          • duderium [he/him]
            hexbear
            45
            10 months ago

            Oh my god, just think, you won’t be able to check reddit or read the new york times without your precious VPN! The horror!

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            hexbear
            15
            10 months ago

            Wow it's almost like the great firewall is trivial to circumvent and countless millions of people do it every day.

        • @u_tamtam@programming.dev
          hexbear
          3
          10 months ago

          It could be that. Or it could be the exact opposite (which it is, would you want to see my hukou?), and the fact that you can't tell the difference while thinking that you could and that it matters makes you an angry little person.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
            hexbear
            24
            10 months ago

            The fact that all you ever do here is shit on China shows what your agenda is buddy. The only angry little person here is the one who can't say a single nice thing about a country that's lifting millions of people out of poverty each and every year.

            • @u_tamtam@programming.dev
              hexbear
              2
              10 months ago

              "agenda", I like how you make it sound like my posts are some kind of greater, organized operation or conspiracy. Projection maybe? Because between the two of us, you are the only one whose post history is consistently made of political activism disguised as news. Not that it automatically makes you a bad person, but you can't reasonably expect people to take you and your opinion seriously when you have the pretence to simultaneously speak from position of authority on geopolitical topics as broad as China, Russia, West Africa, North America, Central America, Eastern Europe, all at the same time. You should realize that you can't possibly have such a broad life exposure, or your time would be better invested outside of Lemmy, don't you think? The only reasonable alternative, and sad reality, is that you are just repeating talking points conveniently arranged for you and repeated inside your echo chamber.

              As of me, I am equally entitled to my own opinions, equally partaking to information bubbles, with the difference that my life is actually forever bound to China and that I can legitimately pretend that I have something to contribute to that discussion. Unlike you, I am not brigading from a far-away continent. I don't "shit on China". Had you any idea of my situation, you wouldn't even think of saying something like that. You do may find that some of what I have to say on certain topics is contrary to your ideals, but so is China: it isn't the monolithic strong fortress people make it to be in the media (in either side of the discourse).

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
                hexbear
                5
                10 months ago

                I'm actually pretty open about my political activism. I'm not disguising anything. Having grown up in USSR, and moved around the world a lot, I do think I have a much broader exposure than majority of people. The fact that you presume to know so much about me exposes the sad reality about you projecting what you know of yourself to be true onto others I'm afraid. I also love how you accuse me of doing what you yourself regularly do here, unless you'll have us believe that you have some deep expertise on the political situation in Africa. Seems to me that you're trying to speak from position of authority in comments such as this one, while clearly demonstrating utter lack of knowledge on the subject. I don't know why you felt the need to be "brigading" that far away continent.

                Meanwhile, nowhere have I claimed that China is some monolithic strong fortress or that there aren't legitimate problems in China. My only claims has been that despite the problems China has, it shows a better alternative to what the west is doing. While you seem to be fixating on problems such as unlimited freedom of expression, that affects a tiny majority of the people, I'm looking at the problem of meeting the material needs of the people. China has done a far better job in ensuring that people have things like food, housing, education, and healthcare than the supposedly enlightened western liberal societies.

                To sum up, you pretend to have some sort of high ground and sling feces at me, but the only difference is that you support western empire and all its horrors whether you realize it or not.

    • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
      hexbear
      12
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      I’d rather be under the rule of a hegemony that is composed of many different cultures and in the process of healing than one who is still actively genociding their minorities.

      EDIT: Welp, I guess there is no war in Ba Sing Se. Ya'll are expert brigaders, well done.

      • JohnBrownsBussy2 [he/him]
        hexbear
        65
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Less than 10% of Native Americans can speak their native language. How many Uighers and Tibetans can speak theirs?

        Have you been to a reservation? I remember one that we drove through in Arizona, the Hualapai. It wasn't just a desert, but a salt flat, utterly devoid of vegetation. Along the road, you had dilapidated pre-fabs, occupied of course by the victims that had been placed here. Not all reservations are as harrowing. I've visited the Navajo Nation, as well as Lakota and Ute reservations. Poverty is intense, and people do the best they can, but the reality is that these people had their lands stolen from them and were forced to the most marginal places in US, unsuitable for much agriculture and barely suitable for ranching.

        There is no healing in these places, rather the victims of genocide are constantly blamed for their own poverty by the settler communities stole their land. The native peoples were devastated by covid due to the lack of healthcare resources as well.

        Let's look at the Black American community as well. It was just 3 years ago that the US had its largest protest movement in history against the police killings of unarmed Black men. And what was the response by the government and media? After a moment of groveling, to take back all promises of reform and instead funnel even more money to an increasingly militarized police force, and to engage in a panicked sensationalized crime wave reportage. Police killings continue (1 in 20 homicides are perpetrated by the police), and the economic situation hasn't improved much for Black Americans since the Great Recession lead to a massive seizure of Black household wealth.

        The situation in the US isn't healing, it's an oozing pustulate sore. There has been a failure to reinforce voting rights, and anything like reparations, even just targeted relief, is considered a joke and a non-starter in the halls of power. The only healing is in the minds of libs that think that donning Kente cloth and watching Black Panther constitutes absolution.

        This of course is to say nothing of the murderous wars waged by the US in Iraq, Laos, Vietnam and elsewhere, and the genocides it co-sponsored in Guatamala and Indonesia. Or the general neo-colonial global financial mechanisms that lock the third world into permanent debt traps and underdevelopment.

        • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
          hexbear
          3
          10 months ago

          Yeah, the US did and is doing fucked up things. But we're talking scale in the modern era here.

          How much longer will the Uyghurs be able to speak their language when china bans Uyghur language books in Uyghur schools? Why does China put up signs at those schools saying that only language permitted on school grounds is Mandarin? Why is china sending hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese to Uyghur home for days at a time to ensure they are speaking Mandarin?

          Maybe the US can heal better and faster from its atrocities, but China is actively pursuing atrocities at an official industrial state level.

          • CloutAtlas [he/him]
            hexbear
            47
            10 months ago

            ??? Xinjiang's curriculum still has Uyghur as the primary language as of 2023, Uyghur internet celebs aren't speaking Mandarin on Douyin (ever wonder why TikTok has subtitles as a default? Partially for the hearing impaired, but the app it's cloned from is Chinese and that is multilingual, hence pushing for subtitles as a default. Cantonese, Hokkien, Haka, Min, Tibetan, Uyghur, etc etc)

            The news is broadcast in Uyghur, the road signs are in Uyghur

            What Reddit post said Han people were going into homes to enforce Mandarin? Han people ourselves don't even speak Mandarin exclusively.

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              hexbear
              9
              10 months ago

              The han people in Uighur homes thing is in the UN report. Afaik the official explanation is some kind of cultural exchange, meet your neighbors, get to know other cultural groups from your country thing, but it sounded pretty clumsy. I don't recall anything about telling people not to speak their language.

          • duderium [he/him]
            hexbear
            45
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Have you heard of Adrian Zenz? The dude is a Christofascist CIA operative, and every claim you made there can be traced straight back to his imagination (aside from your nonsensical hypotheticals of course). Liberals hate christofascists—except when they uphold anticommunism. The Uyghurs and Han Chinese have also coexisted for centuries. Even if anything Zenz says is remotely true, none of it compares in the slightest to the genocide, slavery, and destruction perpetrated around the world by the USA in the last ten years alone.

          • happyandhappy [she/her]
            hexbear
            38
            10 months ago

            youve got a lot of spunk for somebody who doesnt really know what they are talking about. China has 56 recognized and protected ethnic minority groups where scholars are creating alphabets for minority languages that had not been previously written as a way to preserve their languages. How many indigenous people in the US and Hawaii can even say that they speak their language after having had them systematically destroyed for decades?

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              hexbear
              12
              10 months ago

              Hint: it's like 2%, and the death of every one of the precious few elders who still fluently speak these languages is an incalculable and irrevocable loss.

          • JohnBrownsBussy2 [he/him]
            hexbear
            36
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            1.) I think others in the thread have done a good job on the Uighers situation. On that front, I see a somewhat heavy handed anti-terror program, but the claims of genocide are fabricated and inconsistent with material reality. Of course, the Chinese reaction to terrorism was a bluntly applied education and job training program, and I can see the carcerel angle even from China-sympathetic sources. Was it good? It wasn't great, but the program is effectively over. Compare this to the US anti-terror response which was to invade 2 countries and wage decade long occupations leading to the death and displacement of millions of people.

            2.) Is the modern era literally just the past 5 years for you? Do you have the brain of a fucking goldfish? If I stabbed you in the leg are we good 5 years down the road? How about 10 years, or 20, or 50? This makes me mad because the United States was founded on the stolen land and labor of these people, and it continues to treat them like shit. What is healing to you? How can there be healing sans any sort of restitution? China has actually invested a fair amount of resources to protect the various languages and cultures that constitute its society. The US stripped every resource from the Native Americans and gives them the bare minimum to survive as individuals, nowhere near enough to recover.

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              hexbear
              9
              10 months ago

              Yeah, like no question the Chinese anti-terror operation violated basic rights, the rights were things like arbitrary arrest and detention where people were held for several months (and forced to sing patriotic songs for some bizarre reason), not the unhinged fantasies being punted aorund on Reddit and the news.

              Like yeah, arresting people and holding them for a month or three without telling their families where they are is wrong. You shouldn't do that. But for some reason Libs never know about what's in the UN report and trying to tell them is like trying to tell a brick wall.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            hexbear
            12
            10 months ago

            Is this one of those Marvel: What If? Things? Which issue should I be looking at? Is it X-men?

            Hey, did you know 250,000 or more internal refugees are fleeing state repression from American government forces that, according to the UN definition, are engaged in an active genocidal campaign against them?

        • @robot
          hexbear
          49
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          deleted by creator

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              hexbear
              10
              10 months ago

              It's so fucking frightening how no one knew, and when you tried to tell them no one cared, about the genocidal US/Saudi campaign to slaughter the greatest number of Yemeni people possible. Just the utter indifference in American's eyes was and is terrifying.

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]
        hexbear
        54
        10 months ago

        If we pretend that what the USA does to its own people is acceptable, you still have to consider what it does to the rest of the world. I'm sorry, but in light of all the evidence, I see the US hegemony as evil. I also doubt the western media's portrayal of the Uyghur "genocide" and I don't agree that China is in the process of a Holocaust against its own people.

        I'm lucky enough to have a job that puts me in contact with a lot of countries all over the global south of the world, and the general opinion from all of them is that China is a lot better prospect than old Western imperialism.

        • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
          hexbear
          9
          10 months ago

          The Chinese propaganda made to counter the satellite images, testimony from victims, and video evidence consists of some YouTubers visiting the same handful of uncomfortably smiling Uyghur families under the careful eye of Chinese censors and fluff pieces that amount to “nuh-uh”.

          China is trying to erase the culture of people within their borders, again, and there is a long tradition of this forced assimilation in China. They are not pluralistic, and don't want to be, and their attitude towards non-chinese within their borders lead me to have very low expectations on how they will treat minorities outside.

          • Awoo [she/her]
            hexbear
            51
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            If a grainy satellite photo that could be of literally anything and random testimony is your standard of evidence please stay the fuck away from any position of authority, everywhere.

            China has 56 different major ethinicities and 5 different autonomous regions. The only racist here is you, for believing this shit and knowing nothing about the country. The two fastest growing ethnicities in China are Tibetan followed by Uighur.

            their attitude towards non-chinese within their borders lead me to have very low expectations on how they will treat minorities outside.

            "Chinese" is not an ethnicity you racist dumbass. It is a nationality. They are all Chinese.

            • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
              hexbear
              3
              10 months ago

              Is it just one grainy satellite footage? I was under the impression it was a series of images documenting the construction and expansion of detention centers located suspiciously near the population that has been complaining about being disappeared to detention centers. I also thought there are very clear ground-level pictures, showing thousands Uyghur in blue jumpsuits.

              Is the testimony random? I thought it was testimony was mostly from Uyghurs from the affected area, with credible stories that line up with other witnesses and victims that were also questioned.

              You will deny this is true because it is crucial for your reality that it is false. Nothing the US is currently doing is a fucked up as what China is doing in terms of racism and ethnic suppression.

              • emizeko [they/them]
                hexbear
                42
                10 months ago

                You will deny this is true because it is crucial for your reality that it is false.

                wonder-who-thats-for

              • emizeko [they/them]
                hexbear
                37
                10 months ago

                Let us look at a specific example. A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish. The words really refer to existing entities and geographies, but Westerners aren’t familiar with them. The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” and the elementary mistakes people make when they write out statements of “solidarity” make that much clear. This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them. It’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.

                What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for an environment in which no other course of action seems viable. Cognitive dissonance, the kind that eventually spurs one into becoming intolerant of the status quo and into action, is initially unpleasant and scary for everybody. In this way, we can begin to understand the benefit that “victims” of propaganda derive from carelessly “spreading awareness.” Their efforts feed an ambient propaganda haze of controversy and scandal and wariness that suffocates any painful optimism (or jealousy) and ensuing sense of duty one might otherwise feel from a casual glance at the amazing things happening elsewhere. People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.

                from https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

              • Awoo [she/her]
                hexbear
                36
                10 months ago

                Many grainy satellite photos vs 1 grainy satellite photo is really not much of a different.

                I also thought there are very clear ground-level pictures, showing thousands Uyghur in blue jumpsuits.

                No the photo you are referring to is of a prisoner movement between two prisons. You're being showed photos and people are telling you they're X when they're actually Y.

                Is the testimony random? I thought it was testimony was mostly from Uyghurs from the affected area, with credible stories that line up with other witnesses and victims that were also questioned.

                There's about 30, and almost always extremely sus circumstances surrounding them. Meanwhile we have literally thousands of videos of tourists readily available, right now, of people visiting the area and having conversations. Who do you believe here? People IN XINJIANG or people outside it?

                Look. Let me give you some food for thought on this from another angle. Let's look at another country where know REAL oppression is taking place, Israel, which has more money and a far smaller country mileage area to spend that money. Israel is an apartheid state actively murdering and oppressing the Palestinians with the intent of stealing their land and eliminating them. https://reddit.com/r/israelexposed is what this looks like.

                The evidence against Israel is insurmountable. Mountains of it. Hundreds of thousands of actual video of actual shit. Real evidence.

                In a country where literally everyone owns a smartphone it is impossible to prevent the creation of this evidence. Even with more resources and a smaller surface area to stop this shit from getting out - Israel can't stop it getting out. But you're trying to say that China can? With fewer resources and a much MUCH larger surface area? They can stop 100% of all evidence from coming out? Just some misrepresented photos that don't actually depict what people claim they depict? Some critical thinking is needed here. Why is there so much evidence in Israel and absolutely zero evidence in China? Don't just turn to the idea that they have an all-powerful state that can somehow be in all places at all times magically preventing even a single video from getting out, that idea is a fantasy and comes from the realm of the delusional. Really THINK about this. Be critical.

                The reason the evidence does not exist is because what has been claimed is not accurate.

                Now, does that mean that China didn't implement a re-education program? No it doesn't. Does that mean that this wasn't quite a heavy handed measure aimed at stopping terrorism? No it doesn't. It was a really serious undertaking that was certainly a heavy handed use of authority that probably had individual instances of dickwads in that authority acting as dickwads. But, what I am asking you to do is to see through this bullshit genocide crap. It's nonsense. There is no evidence for it and it's not what actually happened. They had a serious string of terrorism, and to stop it they implemented a very large re-education program that people had to attend Monday-Friday (they could go home on weekends). That's what actually happened. No genocide. No mass sterilisation nonsense. No massive repression of religion (other than the extremist one that was committing the terrorism, imported from over the border in Afghanistan).

                • Frank [he/him, he/him]
                  hexbear
                  8
                  10 months ago

                  A good historical parallel is all the brave people who escaped from an in many cases returned to and escaped again from the Nazi death camps to carry intelligence and information to the allies and partisan groups. All the Allied leadership knew about the death camps because photos, maps, and detailed information was being smuggled out regularly. They were visible on aerial surveillance.

                  Now there are billions of cell phones, the great firewall is as porous as a seive, and there's no evidence of genocide in Xinjiang. Arbitrary arrest and detention? Yeah. A lot of ham-handed cultural programs? Yeah. But genocide? Nothing. And the counter-terrorism progra was wrapped up a few years ago because apparently it was very successful and the threat of Wahhabi insurgents is effectively nil now.

              • Frank [he/him, he/him]
                hexbear
                9
                10 months ago

                Yeah, bro. There were detention centers. The government was arresting people on pretty sketchy evidence and holding them for 2-3 months without telling their families. And making them sing patriotic songs for some reason. It's in the UN report. It's a violation of the basic right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention. And it's not genocide. Christ almighty does anyone even know the un report exists?

            • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
              hexbear
              3
              10 months ago

              The Iraqi propaganda was hastily produced to justify a war. The Uyghur situation has been uncovered by journalists slowly over decades.

              I thought your links would be to any of the dozens of images, articles, and videos on the Uyghur situation. Why not link a debunking of that instead of trying to assert that because lies exist that the Uyghur ethnocide is also a lie. Your argument is weak because facts won't support it.

              • duderium [he/him]
                hexbear
                33
                10 months ago

                Since you sound like an expert who has really done your homework here, let’s see some of these stunning pictures you’re talking about and then compare them to photos from America’s prisons. I wonder which will look worse? Doesn’t the USA also lock up far more people per capita than China?

                • Frank [he/him, he/him]
                  hexbear
                  8
                  10 months ago

                  As a point of comparison the US has hands down the most violent and oppressive carceral system in the west by a huge margin, and they can't keep people from broadcasting audio and video from inside the prison even when the pigs have the whole place locked down to hide the atrocities being comitted from the world.

              • CloutAtlas [he/him]
                hexbear
                31
                10 months ago

                Uncovered over decades? It seems like decades in internet years but the first reports started in 2014, less than 9 years ago.

                • Mindfury [he/him]
                  hexbear
                  12
                  10 months ago

                  first reports started in 2014, less than 9 years ago.

                  Damn, I wonder when the US released the last Uyghur detainees from Guantanamo Bay?

              • Bobby_DROP_TABLES [he/him]
                hexbear
                27
                10 months ago

                It was more too discount the fact that either of those things are conclusive evidence in some way. Idk where you're getting "slowly over decades" from because the entire story is barely 9 years old. All of the "journalism" on the subject is just people regurgitating stuff from Adrian Zenz, a dude claims he was "led by God to fight China" and works for a nonprofit that claims COVID-19 deaths and German WWII casualties count as victims of communism. Hardly a reliable source.

              • happyandhappy [she/her]
                hexbear
                21
                10 months ago

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz9ICFDk8Js

                this guy doesn't even support china's policy and he will debunk all of this shit for you

          • duderium [he/him]
            hexbear
            34
            10 months ago

            Do a google image search for “Uyghur genocide.” Report back with any interesting images you find. This has been going on for twenty years now, surely there must be some pretty gruesome photos somewhere, comparable at least to the images of the Haitians deported by Biden to make room for Ukrainians in a totally not racist way?

      • Starlet [she/her, it/its]
        hexbear
        53
        10 months ago

        Ya'll are expert brigaders, well done.

        It's a frontpage post dumbass 💀 we're not brigading we're just commenting on the post that appears on our feeds

        • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
          hexbear
          5
          10 months ago

          Yes, a swarm of tankies from the same instance(hexbear) descending upon the same thread with the same opinions, and spamming images, totally not brigading.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            hexbear
            33
            10 months ago

            It's a communist instance with very few other instances federated, what the fuck do you expect? The CPC doesn't give a shit about either of us, you aren't involved in some YA dystopia story by posting.

          • brain_in_a_box [he/him]
            hexbear
            32
            10 months ago

            It literally isn't, and if you actually learned how federation works, rather than assuming everything works like reddit, you'd know that

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
            hexbear
            12
            10 months ago

            The only spam-like opinions I'm seeing are all the same stale old forms of apologia for the world-strangling US Empire, and the same old stale racism and homophobia from scratched liberals.

              • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
                hexbear
                8
                10 months ago

                "Yes, but if they invite allied troops into their country it stills counts as an invasion of Ukraine. What do you mean that isn't independence? "

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              hexbear
              14
              10 months ago

              Hey now. Don't be mean. We're not apologizing. We're cheerleading. Being the only country in the world to meaningfully reduce extreme poverty is a hell of a thing.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        hexbear
        53
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I’d rather be under the rule of a hegemony that is composed of many different cultures and in the process of healing than one who is still actively genociding their minorities.

        Source: Adrian Zenz zenz

        China has 56 different major ethinicities and 5 different autonomous regions. The only racist here is you, for believing this shit and knowing nothing about the country. The two fastest growing ethnicities in China are Tibetan followed by Uighur.

        • duderium [he/him]
          hexbear
          39
          10 months ago

          The Hui people are also a different kind of Muslim living in China but liberals haven’t learned about them yet.

      • emizeko [they/them]
        hexbear
        37
        10 months ago
        • https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
        • https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/xinjiang
      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        hexbear
        11
        10 months ago

        Which country are you talking about? The us? CAnada? Australia? There's so many countries actively genociding their minorities you need to narrow it down. Are the French still trying to put the Romani in camps? I haven't looked in to it in a while.