Can people do emotional labour for me an explain why China good and why China not bad?
I know all countries are going to have bad things going on, but why is China especially good and why is it not especially bad?
I really do want to believe that China good, and the following stuff isn't supposed to be an excuse for me to post "China bad" stuff here. Things I'm specifically worried about are Uyghur genocide, Mongolian cultural genocide, and prison labour. All I know about those is from American documentaries that are probably anti-Chinese propaganda, but they were really convincing and had video of the bad stuff. I work with a lot of Chinese people, and only one of them says that China is bad, and I believe him the least. He had a ridiculous story about people eating his dog and he looooves capitalism.
I know the US and Canada and probably all other places have had this same stuff and are just better at hiding it or excusing it now, so I'm starting out at a point where China seems no better or worse than any other country.
China is arguably far more progressive in terms of worker’s rights, social welfare and safety nets, public ownership of major services and industries,
Probably a key point to consider here is trajectory. Like there were many tangible gains of the revolution w/r/t a planned economy, many have been abandoned with the restoration of capitalist relations.
there is the rub. If they don't gain power the US will destroy them like we did to the USSR. If they do gain power in this capitalist system it kinda has to be through capitalism. Given how they have systematically seized the means of production and improved the lives of millions of workers it seems like a good plan so far. It is playing with fire, this is true. There is a golden path where this 70 year old country keeps improving, while the hundred year old countries keep declining till a lifetime from now, they are the global hegemony and things are better than they used to be. We can't be sure they will end that way, we can however be sure the US is trying to speed run the any% bad ending.
I'll push back on a lot of that. Sure the US desired, had a hand in, the downfall of the Soviet Union. But US imperialism wasn't the sole cause of the downfall of the USSR. The planned economy was a massive step forward for the USSR, allowing it to develop from a sort of backwater into a world power and raising quality of life considerably for the working masses. But, economic planning by a bureaucracy was a poor substitute for truly spreading control over the economy and society into the hands of the masses, basically the full realization of the tasks of proletarian revolution. The result was a slow degeneration of the revolution, and a decay of the workers' state, until both could no longer withstand the deterioration and external pressures.
"If they do gain power in this capitalist system it kinda has to be through capitalism."
But, the example of the USSR shows why the quote above is 100% not true. It wasn't the soviet union's limited embrace of capitalism that catapulted its development, it was the rational economic planning that can be done when capitalist relations are overthrown and the bourgeoisie kept out of power. Tsarist Russia, with its lopsided capitalist development, was not on a trajectory to be a dominant world power.
There is a golden path where this 70 year old country keeps improving
Except economic growth in China has been slowing compared to where it's been. Global capitalism is in perpetual crisis, and China, having reintegrated into global capitalism, is not magically immune to the crises and limitations of capitalism. It got out of the 2008 crisis by massive debt-financed government spending, but the stimulus for covid has been smaller, in part because of debt worries. If you look at what the Covid economic relief measures have been, they've been tactics to prop up a capitalist economy--they don't look all that dissimilar to what the US has done. As Marx pointed out, capitalist solutions to capitalist crises and contradictions only serve to kick the can down the road, at best. Capitalism no longer works, as a global system, to develop the productive forces.
Sure, the general trajectory for China is up, as you point out, but there is always a valley after the peak when it comes to capitalist development. If the "fire" in your analogy is capitalism, China has not just played with fire, it has embraced it, downsides and all.
You are giving me examples of of things worked for the ussr but... Listen, we both know how it ended. I think if the USSR had been able to integrate cybernetic theory it would have done better. Similar if the USSR didn't have the threat of global thermonuclear war it would have been better.
China is trying something different. They are taking a more cautions path. Yes, moving slowly does cost human lives. However if they win the great game, which is still a strongly possible option, then the can make the entire future better. China had to work fast, and did, and has. They knew they were next in line for a cold war after the the USSR fell, and the only way they could be sure to secure their potion was the way they took. We can't talk about china as acting as a free agent here. The material conditions of them being massively under developed and having loaded nukes pointed at them does limit their possibilities.
So in a roundabout way, I feel that china's growth slowing is a sign they are moving away from using capitalism to fuel their development. Look at the belt and road system. They could do colonialism again and no one would bat an eye. Instead their belt and road plan does seem to be about development instead of capital accumulation. They used capitalism for what marx said it was good for. Having accumulated the capital, the means of production, enough solar panels to sit out the age of oil, and a population still cheap enough to feed . They are well positioned to take over once we have run ourselves into the ground.
Or shits, entirely fucked. We'll see eventually. I am cautiously optimistic.
(ML’s+other unaffiliated leftists) worship China like it has zero flaws and can do no wrong.
Honestly I see this take repeated all the time and it just doesn't seem representative of reality. The tankie subs I frequent (r/GenZeDong and r/sendinthetanks pretty much, the others aren't as active) are pretty open about criticizing China, most often on post Sino-Soviet split foreign policy and a little bit on Deng's liberalizations.
Hello, I'm Spanish and I live and study in China (currently I'm not in China because of the coronavirus btw). Want my honest take? I love China and in many ways it's much better than Western countries, but the world is not black and white like most of you Anglos see it. At the end of the day, the truth is that – like it or not – it has mostly good things, but also bad and ironic things.
One of the things that annoy me the most it's how Westerners talk about China without knowing. China has problems and legitimate criticism can be done, but sadly what you hear about China it's usually not legitimate criticism, just lies and propaganda (e.j. fairytales about genocide, supremacy, debt diplomacy, control, etc). That's why the US is failing to reach Chinese people and it's in fact making them more nationalistic, because they don't understand the country nor know it's problems, they just make shit up. Their public it's not your average Chinese, but their domestic and international ignorant Western audience.
To sum it up: most of the things you hear about China are lies, but there are problems too, no country it's perfect. We have to understand the conditions of China too, sometimes Western people fail to understand that the China of 50 years ago didn't look anything like current China. To put it in other way, my girlfriend's parents are poor farmers, while my girlfriend is a satellite engineer – that's China in a nutshell. The government it's surely addressing problems, but changes take time, especially when they are cultural and societal.
Anyways, I will tell you the same thing I tell many people when they find it hard to believe that China is fine: visit the country and check it for yourself. It might be silly, but it's really the best way to know the truth. Also, I assure you, you will enjoy it, especially if you are a foodie.
One last thing: I know I want to settle and spend the rest of my life in China – at least for the moment. Take that as you will.
Edit: feel free to ask me anything
SexyCyborg is such a cool person, it’s always the more I read about her and what she does and puts up with I respect her more as a maker
Could anybody say something about this upposed "social credit" thing? I have only heard vague elusions to it that sound very made up
I just find it rich when Americans mention it while we have credit scores and magazines full of mugshots
Don't forget that we've given something like a third of the American workforce criminal records and we openly discriminate against people with criminal records in employment, education, housing, and public assistance.
From a relatively mainstream source:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-credit-score-isnt-real/
That entire article is detailing what virtually anyone would think of when you say "social credit score". And then it claims there isn't one. The fuck
China’s party-state is collecting a vast amount of information on its citizens, and its social credit system and other developments internally and overseas raise many serious concerns. But contrary to the mainstream media narrative on this, Chinese authorities are not assigning a single score that will determine every aspect of every citizen’s life—at least not yet.
My big takeaways were:
- Even if there is talk of something called a "social credit score," it doesn't exist yet (even though the infrastructure one would require is being built).
- There's a lot of confusion because they do have regular credit scores, ways of publishing names of lawbreakers, and private consumer programs that look at more than what a regular credit score looks at.
From just that article it looks a lot like what the U.S. has. That's still bad (although it could easily be run more fairly than the U.S. system), but it's not as Orwellian as right-wingers make it out to be.
I think it's dumb to think of it as a binary. It's a spectrum. China sucks but so does every other country. I think the better question is whether China sucks more than the US. The answer is they suck in different ways and it depends on what your values and priorities are.
I think energy is better spent on saying how certain parts of China suck.
https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1287411708374454273
if you read through that and have more questions I have more resources I can share
persona: compiles a massive amount of research with sources
random twitter lib: have you considered looking at Adrian Zenz?
Also, wow this 2014 article from Foreign Policy that lowkey swerves into "xinjiang is actually too muslim" https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/14/one-uighur-mans-journey-goes-viral/ interesting :thinkin-lenin:
Even Chinese don’t have a good understanding of Xinjiang; how could foreigners? Many foreigners have made up stories or hyped up small matters into big ones, and use those lies as a way to make a living for themselves.
lol holy shit, this is from 2014
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d0lynghlCnR6Hs57pypEEhlhHczFVgaYX-TIZD61s_w/edit?usp=sharing
https://youtu.be/BeMfSulfSsM
https://youtu.be/unpUSB3ne6M
https://youtu.be/ZLDV9A4JNJg
https://youtu.be/ClKkoteV1ts
China is incredibly young as a country, 70 years or so. In that time they have made the lives of their people much better. Now it looks like china is helping in Africa as well. It looks like china is doing as much good as it can given the constraint that we would have the CIA kill them and replace the communist party with a right wing dictatorship if we could. That really ties their hands. So I am not sure that these cases of are even important to understanding the problem.
This podcast does a pretty decent job pushing back against the state department propaganda
https://overcast.fm/+bQE-m2qJM
China's a state, of course it's bad. State's gotta state.
Good stuff: Lifting a zillion people out of poverty. Rapidly building the infrastructure to lift more people out of poverty. Probably going to be the ones saving people on their side of the planet from climate change.
Bad stuff: Suppressing dissent / journalists. No the fact that the CIA exists isn't an excuse you ridiculous goose. It's not necessary, it's just comforting to random people in power.
Uyghur genocide: Doesn't seem to be a real thing, but there is a reeducation program for people suspected of falling for islamic terrorist ideologies. I'm not close enough to the problem to know if that's necessary, and if it is I absolutely do not know how to do it in a manner that won't be abused. I'll eat a live bear on webcam if they get through that without anyone abusing power.
Mongolian cultural genocide: They replaced three Mongolian textbooks with ones in Mandarin. This is worth protesting, if you live in China or Mongolia. It might escalate if not resisted. Why is this getting so much more attention than injustices happening right under your nose? There might be a motivation behind that, you know.
Stuff to put in perspective: Prison population, prison labor, suppressing journalists, etc is the same or worse in the US. What happened to Chelsea Manning exactly? Maybe you're criticizing China to figure out what you could do better when building your own communist movement, in which case this the US being bad is irrelevant. But if the context is US intervention, which is why China Bad is in the news so much lately, then maybe find a hero that's less shit than your villain first.
If you don't support China, you're a lib.
If you do support China, you're a Dengist.
The only reasonable opinion is that it literally doesn't matter what anyone thinks because they're on their own trajectory and it can't be altered. Unless some of you are high up CCP and aren't telling us.
The only actionable left unity position is that China is fucking up US hegemony and knives are now out for it. So they should be supported on that basis. Otherwise, you're literally doing the Imperialists work for them.
That being said, if you can overlook the fact that life sucks there for the vast majority of the Proletariat because they've created so much new wealth, you might be a fucking neoliberal, since that argument is literally identical to the one they make.
Believe it or not, it is actually possible to use capitalism to grow productive forces, and also not completely treat people like shit and pollute their living environments. We know this because there literally are other examples of Socialism to look to, including the USSR, which weren't nearly as bad.
China reoriented to the West after the Sino-Soviet split. That has come with many advantages, as they're now richer and arguably ready to take over, but you'd also have to be fucking crazy to think it hasn't caused revisionism.
